Advertisement EMD Serono begins co-promotion of Pfizer's cancer drug Xalkori in US - Pharmaceutical Business review
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EMD Serono begins co-promotion of Pfizer’s cancer drug Xalkori in US

Merck subsidiary EMD Serono as part of its global strategic alliance with Pfizer has started co-promoting the latter's anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor Xalkori (crizotinib) in the US.

The start of field-based commercialization efforts for Xalkori is part of the company’s aim to bring treatment options for challenging cancers to patients.

In the US, Xalkori is approved to treat patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors are anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive as detected by an FDA-approved test.

Xalkori is the first ALK inhibitor approved in the US, Japan and the European Union (EU) and is supported by two positive global randomized trials in the first- and second-line ALK-positive advanced NSCLC treatment settings.

EMD Serono president and managing director Paris Panayiotopoulos said: "The Xalkori co-promotion between EMD Serono and Pfizer marks our first entry into the US oncology market, further delivers on our EMD Serono strategy in specialty care and, most importantly, extends our work to help patients and their families battling serious diseases.

"As our pipeline progresses, we aim to build on this first entry with additional oncology and immuno-oncology therapies."

More than 8,000 patients have been treated worldwide with Xalkori, including those who received the treatment in clinical trials.

The co-promotion agreement is part of a global strategic alliance between Merck and Pfizer to jointly develop and commercialize avelumab, an investigational anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody, to accelerate the development of immuno-oncology medicines for patients with cancer.

The company said that the immuno-oncology alliance will also advance Pfizer’s PD-1 antibody.