Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) watched its shares go sharply south Monday morning, on less than satisfactory news concerning its latest breast cancer drug.
The New York-based pharmaceutical giant issued a disappointing update concerning its Phase 3 early breast cancer Palbociclib Collaborative Adjuvant Study trial results.
The Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer study group and the Alliance Foundation Trials, LLC, reported that following an analysis, the independent data monitoring committee of the PALLAS study determined the trial is unlikely to show significant improvement in the primary endpoint of invasive disease-free survival.
The results of the study indicate that, when used in combination with post-surgery endocrine therapy, it “is unlikely to show a statistically significant improvement in the primary endpoint of invasive disease-free survival (iDFS).”
The trial was conducted on male and female patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative early stage breast cancer.
Experts say it’s quite a setback for Pfizer, which had hoped to unlock even greater commercial potential for the successful Ibrance in early stage breast cancer treatment. It said it was “disappointed” in the study’s results.
In spite of that, Pfizer insists that the Ibrance setback won’t divert it from its growth path. In its pres release announcing the news, the company wrote that “[g]iven the continued breadth of our marketed portfolio and strength of our pipeline, our growth projections are not reliant upon any individual marketed medicine or pipeline opportunity.”
PFE shares lost $2.52, or 6.6%, to $35.67