Dr. Fred Hirsch on Next Steps for Necitumumab in NSCLC

Fred R. Hirsch, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and pathology, University of Colorado Cancer Center, CEO, International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), discusses necitumumab for first-line treatment of advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The phase III SQUIRE trial, which investigated novel EGFR-antibody necitumumab plus chemotherapy in advanced NSCLC, demonstrated that the combination had superior survival compared to chemotherapy alone. In the combination arm, there was with a median overall survival rate of 11.5 months versus 9.9 months in the chemotherapy alone group.

Necitumumab is approved in the U.S for NSCLC without any biomarker, while it Europe it is only approved for patients with EGFR-expressing tumors.

Necitumumab is now being investigated in other combinations, including with immunotherapy, says Hirsch. A better way to select patients that will benefit from necitumumab is also being investigated. Protein expression or gene copy number by FISH are potential ways patients could be selected to receive or not receive the drug, he says.