“Pfizer has worked to pioneer biomarker-driven medicine for patients with ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer and we continue to advance patient care with the approval of LORVIQUA,” said Andreas Penk, M.D., regional president, Oncology International Developed Markets at Pfizer.
“We are proud that LORVIQUA is our second lung cancer medication approved in Europe within two months and our third biomarker-driven medicine for lung cancer. We look forward to making LORVIQUA available for European patients with ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer who have progressed on prior therapy with a second generation ALK medicine.”
The conditional marketing authorization was based on results from a non-randomized, dose-ranging and activity-estimating, multi-cohort, multi-center Phase 1/2 study, B7461001, evaluating LORVIQUA for the treatment of patients with ALK-positive advanced NSCLC, who were previously treated with one or more ALK TKIs.
A total of 139 patients with ALK-positive metastatic NSCLC after treatment with at least one second-generation ALK TKI, such as alectinib, brigatinib or ceritinib, were enrolled in the Phase 2 portion of the study. Among these patients, the overall response rate (ORR) for those who have been treated with one prior ALK TKI (N=28) was 42.9% (95% CI: 24.5, 62.8) and 39.6% (95% CI: 30.5, 49.4) for those with two or more prior ALK TKI treatments (N=111). In the trial, 67% of patients had a history of brain metastases.
“Over the last decade, our understanding of ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer has advanced dramatically, leading to multiple medications for patients. However, the common challenges associated with treating the disease, including resistance and brain metastases have created an urgent need for additional treatment options,” said Enriqueta Felip, M.D., Ph.D., Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology in Spain. “The LORVIQUA approval marks an exciting time in lung cancer innovation and I look forward to using this next-generation ALK inhibitor to treat my patients.”
Among 295 ALK-positive or ROS1-positive metastatic NSCLC patients who received LORVIQUA 100 mg once daily in study B7461001, the most common (≥ 20%) adverse reactions were hypercholesterolemia (84.4%), hypertriglyceridemia (67.1%), edema (54.6%), peripheral neuropathy (47.8%), cognitive effects (28.8%), fatigue (28.1%), weight increased (26.4%), arthralgia (24.7%), mood effects (22.7%) and diarrhea (22.7%).
Conditional approval is granted to a medicinal product that fulfils an unmet medical need, where the benefit-risk balance is positive and the benefit of the product’s immediate availability outweighs the risk of less comprehensive data than normally required.1 Under the provisions of the conditional approval, Pfizer will provide additional data from the post-marketing studies, including the Phase 3 CROWN study of LORVIQUA versus crizotinib in the first-line treatment of patients with ALK-positive NSCLC, which is currently ongoing.
LORVIQUA is a TKI that has been shown to be highly active in preclinical lung cancer models harboring chromosomal rearrangements of ALK. LORVIQUA was specifically developed to inhibit tumor mutations that drive resistance to other ALK inhibitors and to penetrate the blood brain barrier.
Source: Company Press Release