#ES­MO17: Eli Lil­ly sets the stage for a CDK 4/6 show­down with Pfiz­er, No­var­tis — but not ex­act­ly to its ad­van­tage

MADRID — Eli Lil­ly came to ES­MO with an eye to dis­tin­guish­ing abe­maci­clib as it pre­pares to launch its CDK 4/6 can­cer drug against ri­vals from No­var­tis and Pfiz­er. It may have done that, but not ex­act­ly as Lil­ly ex­ecs would have liked.

Cur­rent­ly un­der pri­or­i­ty re­view at the FDA, abe­maci­clib reg­is­tered the pos­i­tive da­ta need­ed to win over reg­u­la­tors in MONARCH-3. Re­searchers tracked a 46% re­duc­tion in the risk of dis­ease pro­gres­sion in the tri­al arm in­clud­ing pre­vi­ous­ly un­treat­ed women with ad­vanced breast can­cer, com­par­ing a com­bi­na­tion of abe­maci­clib added to stan­dard care. There was al­so a 59% re­sponse rate on tu­mor shrink­age com­pared to 44% in the con­trol arm pro­vid­ed stan­dard ther­a­py.

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