Pfizer’s Sutent Scores Another Pancreatic Tumor Win (PFE)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Apr 28, 3:35AM EDT · Published Mar 12, 7:46AM EDT

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Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) is stopping its Phase III clinical trial of Sutent early. This is generally a scare over adverse events, but not in this case. Sutent apparently has shown such a significant benefit in patients with advanced pancreatic islet cell tumors that an independent data monitoring committee has recommended halting the trial after concluding that Sutent demonstrated greater progression-free survival compared to placebo.

All patients in the trial will have the option to continue taking Sutent or be switched from placebo to Sutent. The full data set from this trial is being analyzed and more details will be presented at an upcoming scientific meeting. In contrast to exocrine pancreatic adenocarcinoma, pancreatic islet cell tumors are rare, indolent tumors of the endocrine pancreas with an incidence of 5-10 per million worldwide annually. Pancreatic islet cell tumors include insulinomas, glucagonomas and gastrinomas. Current treatment options are limited.

Sutent is already approved for both advanced renal cell carcinoma and second-line gastrointestinal stromal tumor. To date, over than 38,000 patients have been treated with Sutent in the clinical setting and trials.

JON C. OGG

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.