Chi-Med kicks off two cancer drug studies in China

AIM and Nasdaq listed pharmaceutical company, Hutchison China MediTech Limited (Chi-Med) has initiated two Phase II studies in China for testing cancer treatments.

One was a combination therapy using fruquintinib and Iressa for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and another one testing of sulfatinib for biliary tract cancer (BTC).

Chi-Med said on Monday that the first drug dose both treatments was given on January 9, 2017.

The sulfatinib Phase II study is a study of sulfatinib as a monotherapy in treating advanced or metastatic BTC patients who failed one prior systemic therapy.

Chi-Med also said on Monday that data from a different Phase I/II clinical trial of fruquintinib in combination with paclitaxel (Taxol) in second-line patients with advanced gastric cancer will be presented at the 2017 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO-GI), in San Francisco, California from January 19 to 21, 2017.

The company said that it had completed a Phase Ib dose finding study of fruquintinib in combination with paclitaxel, which established a combination regimen that was well tolerated, and continued to enroll patients in this trial to expand the data-set.

The company’s share prices on Friday were £22.07 on AIM, and $13.82 on Nasdaq.