Eli Lilly and Company announced that the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has issued a positive opinion for the use of Alimta (pemetrexed for injection) as continuation maintenance therapy in patients with advanced non-squamous Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC). Positive opinions from the CHMP are reviewed by the European Commission, which then decides on whether to approve the indication in Europe.

Maintenance therapy is a relatively new concept in lung cancer treatment in which patients start maintenance therapy immediately following their first-line treatments to try to maintain disease control. No chemotherapy is currently approved in the “continuation maintenance” setting, in which one of the same medicines used in first-line treatment is continued as maintenance therapy. Currently approved maintenance therapies in lung cancer use different medicines in the first-line and maintenance phases of treatment.

“Lung cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to treat and new therapy options are much needed,” said Allen Melemed, MD, MBA, Alimta senior medical director with Lilly Oncology. “If approved, Alimta would be the first tailored treatment option based on efficacy that can potentially extend lives beginning in first-line treatment and continuing through maintenance in advanced non-squamous NSCLC.”

The CHMP's opinion was based on results from Paramount, a randomized double-blind phase III study presented in June 2011 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting. In this study, patients with advanced non-squamous NSCLC received initial therapy with four cycles of Alimta plus cisplatin. Patients whose disease did not progress continued to the maintenance phase, where progression-free survival was assessed in patients who received Alimta plus best supportive care (BSC), compared with those who received placebo plus BSC.

In the EU and US, Alimta is already approved in the first-line, maintenance and second-line settings for treatment of patients with advanced non-squamous NSCLC.

Globally, lung cancer is the most common form of cancer and the biggest killer, causing 1.3 million cancer deaths annually. About 85 - 90 per cent of all lung cancers are NSCLC. The liver, bones and brain are potential targets if the cancerous cells enter the bloodstream.

NSCLC comprises a group of histologies or tumour types differentiated by cellular structure. Non-squamous histology includes adenocarcinoma and large cell carcinoma, which account for more than half of all NSCLC diagnoses, as well as histologies classified as 'other.'

Lilly Oncology, a division of Eli Lilly and Company, has been dedicated to delivering innovative solutions that improve the care of people living with cancer. Because no two cancer patients are alike, Lilly Oncology is committed to developing novel treatment approaches.

Lilly, a leading innovation-driven corporation, is developing a growing portfolio of pharmaceutical products by applying the latest research from its own worldwide laboratories and from collaborations with eminent scientific organizations.