Merck KGaA and ImClone Systems Inc.'s Erbitux cancer drug extended survival in some colorectal cancer patients for more than two years, new data suggests, though the results may be due to chance.
Patients that didn't carry a certain gene mutation called k- ras survived for 25 months on chemotherapy and Erbitux, according to new findings from the so-called Crystal study. The results weren't statistically significant, the German company said in a statement today. Roche Holding AG, which sells Erbitux rival Avastin, said the data confirms that its drug is superior.
Erbitux is gaining ground on Avastin, which generated $1.22 billion in second-quarter sales. Avastin was developed by Genentech Inc., the U.S. biotechnology company Roche controls. The Roche drug is the only biological medicine that keeps colon cancer at bay for patients with or without the k-ras gene mutation, Roche said in a separate statement today.
``The study shows that the drug works well and prolongs lives, but it's not statistically significant,'' Markus Mayer, an analyst at UniCredit SpA in Munich, said in an interview. ``This is neither positive nor negative.''
Merck fell 81 euro cents, or 1.1 percent, to 75.33 euros at 11:56 a.m. in Frankfurt trading. Roche declined 2.9 Swiss francs, or 1.6 percent, to 183.9 francs in Zurich.
