EMA wants docs to stop pre­scrib­ing Eli Lil­ly’s can­cer drug Lartru­vo — and here's why

Just a few days af­ter Eli Lil­ly’s em­bar­rass­ing ad­mis­sion that its quick-to-mar­ket soft tis­sue sar­co­ma drug Lartru­vo (olara­tum­ab) flopped in a Phase III con­fir­ma­to­ry study, Eu­ro­pean reg­u­la­tors are rec­om­mend­ing that doc­tors find some oth­er drug to use against the dis­ease. 

Ac­cord­ing to the reg­u­la­tors, the drug com­bined with dox­oru­bicin bare­ly edged out dox­oru­bicin alone, not close to a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant out­come. Over­all sur­vival was 20.4 months for the com­bo ver­sus 19.7 months for dox­oru­bicin, with a dis­mal haz­ard ra­tio of 1.05. Chemo alone ac­tu­al­ly edged out the com­bo in pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival; 6.8 months com­pared to 5.4 months.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER