ATLANTA, June 6 (UPI) -- OSI said Tuesday its cancer drug Tarceva shows promise in combination with Avastin for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The company presented these and other findings at this week's meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Atlanta.
OSI said Tarceva showed a "marked effect" in the treatment of advanced NSCLC when used as second-line therapy in combination with Genentech's Avastin (bevacizumab).
This combination might obviate the need for chemotherapy in these patients, OSI officials reported at the conference.
The firm also presented data showing Tarceva appears effective when used earlier in treating lung cancer in patients believed to be less responsive to therapy with EGFR inhibitors, as well as to treat other cancers.
For example, some of the data OSI released at the Atlanta conference confirmed earlier studies that Tarceva seems to fight tumors when used in combination with chemotherapy in patients with head and neck cancer and in male smokers with squamous cell carcinoma or NSCLC.
OSI's drug is already approved as a monotherapy to treat NSCLC patients who have failed prior chemotherapy, and in combination with the chemotherapy drug gemcitabine to treat chemotherapy-naive, advanced pancreatic cancer.
