LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Eli Lily says that data from two large, open- label studies show patients experienced one-year survival rates above fifty percent when treated with ALIMTA® (pemetrexed for injection) or ALIMTA-based protocols for treating malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) in both a first-line and second-line setting. The results from this latest study affirm important efficacy and safety benefits for Eli Lilly’s ALIMTA, the only-known drug to demonstrate a survival benefit in this difficult to treat disease that is associated with asbestos exposure. The data were presented at the 12th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

The triple-arm, open-label, multicenter, first-line study (WCLC Abstract # C5-01) treated patients with ALIMTA as a single agent, while the other two arms evaluated ALIMTA in combination with either cisplatin or carboplatin in one of the largest studies conducted for treating mesothelioma. All three arms of the study showed clinically similar one-year survival rates (58.6% for ALIMTA alone; 63.1% for ALIMTA+cisplatin, and; 64.0% for ALIMTA+carboplatin). The ALIMTA plus platinum combination arms showed higher response rates than ALIMTA alone (10.5% for ALIMTA; 26.3% for ALIMTA+cisplatin, and; 21.7% for ALIMTA+ carboplatin). Each of the 2,023 patients treated in the first-line setting had a histologic or cytologic diagnosis (cells were reviewed under a microscope) of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma that was not treatable using surgery.