In an­oth­er set­back for Eli Lil­ly, FDA fol­lows EMA in call­ing for a halt to new Lartru­vo pre­scrip­tions

A week af­ter Eli Lil­ly re­port­ed the con­fir­ma­to­ry study for its can­cer drug Lartru­vo had failed to help pa­tients live longer, the FDA is dis­cour­ag­ing new pa­tients from get­ting start­ed on the med­i­cine and urg­ing those al­ready on it to con­sult with their doc­tors.

The rec­om­men­da­tions comes on the heels of a sim­i­lar an­nounce­ment from the EMA.

Lartru­vo first won an ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval at the FDA in 2016 as part of a com­bo with the chemother­a­py dox­oru­bicin. It was to be a first-line treat­ment for a sub­set of pa­tients with soft tis­sue sar­co­ma, which had seen no new ap­provals in decades. By the third quar­ter of 2018, Lil­ly had raked in $221.2 mil­lion in Lartru­vo sales last year.

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