Pfizer recently announced the results of its Phase 2 clinical trial of lorlatinib, a next-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor to treat patients with ALK-positive and ROS1-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), in fighting lung tumors and brain metastases.
“The findings presented today suggest that lorlatinib, if approved, may represent an effective treatment option for patients with ALK-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer across multiple lines of therapy," Benjamin Solomon, the study's lead investigator and medical oncologist at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia, said in a Pfizer release. "These are comprehensive data in non-small cell lung cancer patients previously treated with second-generation ALK inhibitors who currently have few available treatment options.”
Solomon said in the release that controlling brain metastases in patients is both critical to success and extremely challenging, and the patient groups in the study had promising intracranial responses to the new treatment.
“Lorlatinib is an extraordinary example of what can be achieved through translational research and precision medicine development,” Mace Rothenberg, chief development officer for oncology at Pfizer Global Product Development, said in the release. “Recall that Xalkori (crizotinib) was the first drug approved for patients with ALK-positive and ROS1-positive NSCLC. By understanding the mutations that occurred in patients that rendered their tumors resistant to Xalkori and other ALK inhibitors, medicinal chemists working at Pfizer were able to design a molecule with the potential to overcome that resistance and inhibit ALK despite these mutations.”
