Cytokinetics' drug flunks another cancer trial

Cytokinetics has determined that its cancer drug ispinesib didn't demonstrate sufficient anti-tumor activity to justify moving on to the next step in a mid-stage study. Last September, South San Francisco-based Cytokinetics stopped exploring the drug candidate for platinum-refractory cancer after it failed to produce convincing data on anti-tumor activity. Researchers went on to explore platinum-sensitive cancer.

"While we are encouraged by both the frequency and duration of disease stabilization observed in the platinum-sensitive treatment arm of this trial, we are disappointed that we did not achieve the objective response rate required by the protocol to continue enrollment in stage two," said Andrew A. Wolff, Cytokinetics' senior vice president of clinical research and development. "We are awaiting data from ongoing Phase Ib combination trials involving ispinesib. With the demonstrated frequency and duration of disease stabilization observed in this patient population and ispinesib's tolerability profile, we plan to consider a potential role that this drug candidate could play in the treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer potentially in combination with other chemotherapeutics."

- read the AP report