Avastin-Tarceva combo fails in lung cancer trial

The late-stage trial combined Genentech's Avastin with OSI's Tarceva in patients who had not responded to chemotherapy. But patients who were treated with Avastin and Tarceva did not survive significantly longer than those who were given Tarceva and a placebo.

The companies said the trial, called BeTa Lung, met its secondary goals, with patients who took the Avastin-Tarceva combination achieving greater tumor response rate and progression-free survival. Non-small cell lung cancer, or NSCLC, is the most common type of lung cancer.

Progression-free survival measures how long patients lived before their tumors began advancing again, while the primary goal of the trial, overall survival, simply measures how long the patients lived after the start of testing.

Full results from BeTa Lung will be presented at the 2008 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology in November.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved Avastin as a primary treatment for advanced, non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer, when combined with chemotherapy. Tarceva was approved as a secondary treatment for NSCLC.

In premarket trading, shares of Melville, N.Y.-based OSI sank $6.09, or 13.3 percent, to $39.75. They finished at $45.84 Friday. Shares of South San Francisco-based Genentech fell $1.33 to $86.20.