Pfizer Inc. halted a Phase III study of its experimental drug axitinib designed to cure advanced pancreatic cancer, the company announced on Friday.

 

The decision was made after an independent board found no evidence of longer survival in pancreatic cancer patients treated with axitinib and gemcitabine, compared with gemcitabine alone, the company’s current treatment for pancreatic cancer. Axitinab was designed to block the creation of blood vessels that feed tumors resembling Genentech Inc.’s Avastin, used for colorectal and lung cancer.

 

“These results were disappointing, given the trend towards prolonged survival seen in a Phase II study of axitinib in this extremely difficult-to-treat patient population,” Mace L. Rothenberg of Pfizer’s Oncology Business Unit said.

 

The company said it has already announced all clinical trial investigators involved in the study and regulatory agencies of the findings and recommends patients to stop treatment with axitinib.

 

There is no cure for advanced pancreatic cancer, with most patients given just six months to live. Chemotherapy and surgery are administered to those diagnosed in the earlier stages of the disease, but just 3 percent are alive five years later of the 7,400 people who are diagnosed each year. The disease is so hard to diagnose, as it has no clear symptoms and when these symptoms show up is already too late. The cancer already spread to other parts of the body and cannot be operated.

 

Pfizer is currently undergoing other clinical trials to study axitinib’s efficacy to treat late stage kidney cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, colon cancer and other tumors types.