Eli Lil­ly’s first PhI­II show­down for their $1.6B can­cer drug just flopped — what now?

When Eli Lil­ly plunked down $1.6 bil­lion in cash to ac­quire Ar­mo Bio­sciences a lit­tle more than a year ago, the stars seemed aligned in its fa­vor. The jew­el in the crown they were buy­ing was pegilode­cakin, which had cleared the proof-of-con­cept stage and was al­ready in a Phase III tri­al for pan­cre­at­ic can­cer.

And that study just failed.

Lil­ly re­port­ed this morn­ing that their can­cer drug flopped on over­all sur­vival when added to FOL­FOX (folin­ic acid, 5-FU, ox­ali­platin), com­pared to FOL­FOX alone among pa­tients suf­fer­ing from ad­vanced pan­cre­at­ic can­cer.

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