Lil­ly's ap­proved can­cer drug Lartru­vo fails con­fir­ma­to­ry study, set­ting the stage for with­draw­al of reg­u­la­to­ry en­dorse­ment

Back in 2016, Lil­ly won FDA ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for its soft tis­sue drug olara­tum­ab on the ba­sis of en­cour­ag­ing da­ta from a small 133-pa­tient mid-stage study, but on Fri­day a larg­er, con­fir­ma­to­ry tri­al meant to ce­ment the ap­proval showed that the treat­ment failed to help pa­tients live longer, which means the US health reg­u­la­tor can re­scind its en­dorse­ment of the drug.

The drug, sold as Lartru­vo, had won the FDA nod in com­bi­na­tion with the chemother­a­py dox­oru­bicin as a first-line treat­ment for a sub­set of pa­tients with the dis­ease, 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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