Experimental Lilly med shrank nearly 70% of tumors in lung cancer trial

Eli Lilly's experimental cancer drug LOXO-292 shrank tumors by 30% or more in 68% of advanced lung cancer patients whose tumors carried specific abnormalities in the RET gene in a recent trial. The drug, now called selpercatinib, was acquired in the beginning of the year when it acquired Loxo Oncology for $8 billion.

The drug is intended for patients with rare RET abnormalities, which occur in about 2% of non-small cell lung cancers, some 10 to 20% of papillary thyroid cancers and about 60% of medullary thyroid cancers.

The study released recently included the first 105 patients with RET-fusion positive non-small cell lung cancers who had been previously treated with chemotherapy. 

Selpercatinib has received breakthrough therapy designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

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