BTG plc: Orphan Drug status granted for anticancer drug plevitrexed

11-Jun-2007

BTG Plc announced that its cancer drug plevitrexed (BGC 9331) has been granted US Orphan Drug Designation for ovarian and gastric cancer indications.

Plevitrexed is a potent, selective thymidylate synthase inhibitor targeting gastric, pancreatic and ovarian cancers. In January 2007, the results of Phase I/II study to investigate the efficacy, safety and tolerability of plevitrexed in patients with advanced and/or metastatic gastric cancer were presented at the ASCO gastrointestinal cancers symposium. The overall efficacy of plevitrexed was in line with other single agent therapy and with that of the two-drug combination cisplatin plus 5-FU as reported in a recent study. The progression-free survival and median overall survival were similar for plevitrexed and for those reported in the cisplatin plus 5-FU combination study, but plevitrexed showed less toxicity and in particular less neutropenia. To date, plevitrexed has been investigated in more than 1,000 patients.

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