Fu­til­i­ty analy­sis au­gurs de­feat in piv­otal tri­al test­ing of Nu­Cana's lead drug in metasta­t­ic pan­cre­at­ic can­cer

Near­ly two years af­ter mak­ing its pub­lic de­but, UK-based Nu­Cana’s mis­sion to make chemother­a­pies more po­tent and safer was dealt a blow, af­ter a piv­otal study test­ing its lead ex­per­i­men­tal drug halt­ed en­roll­ment in a hard-to-treat ad­vanced form of can­cer, fol­low­ing a fu­til­i­ty analy­sis.

The drug, Ace­lar­in, is be­ing eval­u­at­ed for use in metasta­t­ic pan­cre­at­ic can­cer pa­tients who were not con­sid­ered suit­able for com­bi­na­tion chemother­a­py. In the late-stage ACE­LARATE study — which com­pared the ex­per­i­men­tal drug against the chemother­a­py gem­c­itabine — 200 pa­tients had been en­rolled by the spon­sor, Clat­ter­bridge Can­cer Cen­tre, be­fore an analy­sis from an in­de­pen­dent safe­ty and da­ta mon­i­tor­ing pan­el sug­gest­ed the study’s main goal would not be met.

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