Boehringer Ingelheim reports positive head and neck cancer drug data

Boehringer Ingelheim has announced positive results from LUX-Head and Neck 1, a new study of the cancer drug afatinib.

Data from the phase III study demonstrated the efficacy and safety of afatinib in patients with recurrent and/or metastatic head and neck squamous cell cancer compared to methotrexate.

It is the first tyrosine kinase inhibitor to significantly delay tumour growth versus chemotherapy in patients with head and neck squamous cell cancer after the failure of previous therapy. In total, the trial involved 483 patients from 19 countries.

Currently, head and neck cancer has a poor prognosis, with no well-defined standard of care after failure of previous therapy. As such, afatinib represents a potentially useful therapy option.

Professor Gerd Stehle, vice-president for oncology at Boehringer Ingelheim, said: "We are pleased to be presenting these data which, further to the established efficacy of afatinib in distinct types of non-small cell lung cancer, now demonstrate the broadening clinical potential of afatinib."

This comes after the firm recently agreed to collaborate with CureVac to study a combination of afatinib and CV9202 in patients with advanced or metastatic EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer.