Merck reported that patient enrollment in a Phase III clinical study, Centric, has been completed.
Designed to assess the efficacy and safety of the investigational integrin inhibitor, cilengitide, in combination with standard treatment in a biomarker-defined subgroup of newly diagnosed patients with glioblastoma (GBM), Centric had more than 500 patients recruited into this global trial with the primary endpoint of the study is overall survival.
“Completing patient enrollment in the Centric study is a very exciting milestone for us and takes us a step closer to evaluating the efficacy and safety of cilengitide in patients with this aggressive form of brain cancer, an area of high unmet medical need,” says Oliver Kisker, MD, senior vice president for the global clinical development unit of Oncology at Merck Serono.
Cilengitide is the first in a new class of investigational anti-cancer therapies, known as integrin inhibitors, to reach Phase III development. Cilengitide is thought to control tumor growth by working in two ways: through attacking the tumor cells directly in a targeted manner and through starving tumor cells by stopping the formation of new blood vessels that feed the tumor.
Cilengitide is an investigational agent and has not been approved for commercial distribution.
Release Date: June 9, 2011
Source: Merck
Filed Under: Drug Discovery
