Pfizer's
The problem may not be with the drug. Sutent clearly works for some cancers; it's approved to treat two different cancers, and Pfizer has shown that it's effective against a third.
The reason Pfizer has had to discontinue two Sutent clinical trials in the last three months is because the company gambled and tried to show that Sutent could beat current breast cancer drugs.
It couldn’t.
Sutent failed to best Roche's Xeloda in April, and yesterday the company said it was stopping a second trial. The trial in question failed to show that Sutent worked better than Roche's Avastin when they were combined with the active ingredient in Bristol-Myers Squibb's
What's Pfizer's backup plan? If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Sutent is still being tested against breast cancer in two clinical trials. In one, it's combining Sutent with sanofi-aventis'
Combining drugs in order to show an effect isn't a bad idea -- yesterday, Merck
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