Geron Cancels Mid-Stage Breast Cancer Drug Trial.

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Geron Cancels Mid-Stage Breast Cancer Drug Trial.

Reuters (9/10, Manocha) reports Menlo Park, California-based Geron Corp. announced Monday it is discontinuing a Phase II clinical trial on its breast cancer drug imetelstat because an interim analysis indicated that trial participants being administered imetelstat were doing no better than the control group, which was receiving standard chemotherapy. However, an interim analysis showed imetelstat did show some modest improvement over standard therapy in a Phase II trial testing the drug as a non-small cell lung cancer treatment.

        The AP (9/11) adds that Geron said the women in the 166-patient trial who were "treated with imetelstat and paclitaxel had median survival of 6.2 months before death or disease progression, compared to 8 months for the women who were treated with just paclitaxel." Moreover, the company "said 16 of the patients who were treated with imetelstat in the breast cancer study died, compared to 10 of the paclitaxel patients," a difference that was not considered "statistically significant." Meanwhile, Geron said it is still planning to complete the "mid-stage trial of imetelstat" as an NSCLC treatment, "but it does not think the drug will meet the goals of the study and does not plan to move imetelstat into late-stage testing as a treatment for that type of cancer."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-geron-study-idUSBRE8890JQ20120910