Study of NOV-002 in Combination With Chemotherapy to Treat Lung Cancer

NSCLC is a widespread disease with extremely high mortality and morbidity. Even the most widely accepted standard of care chemotherapy in advanced NSCLC, platinum-based doublets, are only palliative, providing marginal efficacy as measured by survival. In addition, such chemotherapy is accompanied by severe, sometimes life-threatening, toxicities which often limit its application. Thus, there is a clear need for new, more effective and safer therapies for advanced NSCLC. In Phase 2 trials, NOV-002 demonstrated a higher response rate and improved survival compared to chemotherapy alone in patients with advanced NSCLC, and was well-tolerated in this patient group. Thus, we are conducting a large Phase 3 trial of NOV-002 to better define its clinical profile and potential benefit in advanced NSCLC patients. The overall design of this Phase 3 trial reflects major elements of the previous Russian and US clinical trials in advanced NSCLC - it is an open label, randomized controlled trial comparing NOV-002 in combination with first-line chemotherapy (paclitaxel + carboplatin) to first-line chemotherapy alone. Furthermore, it is designed and powered to be a pivotal, registrational trial, sufficient for approval. As its primary efficacy endpoint, this Phase 3 trial aims to demonstrate that the combination of NOV-002 with paclitaxel and carboplatin results in improved overall survival when compared with paclitaxel and carboplatin alone. In addition, several secondary efficacy endpoints will be assessed, including progression free survival, tumor response rate and duration of response, quality of life, myelosuppression and immunomodulation. Overall survival was chosen as the primary endpoint of this trial in the context of FDA (Draft) Guidance ("Clinical Trial Endpoints for the Approval of Cancer Drugs and Biologics", April 2005). This Guidance indicates that an improvement in overall survival should be evaluated in randomized controlled trials and is of unquestioned clinical benefit. It indicates that the endpoint is precise and easy to measure, documented by the date of death, and states that bias is not a factor in endpoint measurement, and blinding is not essential. This Phase 3 randomized, controlled, open-label trial thus conforms to this Guidance.