辉瑞公司表示，尽管一种实验性肺癌药物在一项关键临床试验中失败，但该药物联合其他药物治疗仍有前进路径。
Pfizer Inc. sees a path forward for an experimental lung cancer drug in combination with other medicines, despite it failing a key clinical trial.
据阿什利·弗隆报道，辉瑞周日称，在接受该美国药企药物西格沃妥单抗（sigvotatug vedotin）治疗前接受过较少治疗的患者亚组，其生存期比接受化疗的对照组长两个多月。
By Ashleigh Furlong A subgroup of patients who got fewer treatments before being administered the US drugmaker’s sigvotatug vedotin lived more than two months longer than those in a control group treated with chemotherapy, the company said Sunday.
辉瑞通过以430亿美元收购Seagen获得了这种药物，并曾预期它可能成为首个将强效杀癌化合物直接递送至肿瘤的新类药物。然而，当该药物未能改善无法通过手术治疗的晚期肺癌患者的生存期时，遭遇了挫折。
Pfizer gained the medicine in its $43 billion purchase of Seagen and expected it could be the first of a new class of drugs that deliver potent cancer-killing compounds directly to tumors. Instead, it experienced a setback when the medicine failed to improve survival in patients with an advanced form of lung cancer that couldn’t be treated with surgery.
对于辉瑞首席肿瘤学官杰夫·莱戈斯来说，几周时间对某些人来说可能意义重大。
For Jeff Legos, Pfizer’s chief oncology officer, a few weeks can make a big difference for some people.
莱戈斯在会议期间的采访中表示：“对于生存期不足一年的患者来说，两个半月实际上非常有意义。”
“For patients who are living less than a year, two and a half months is actually very meaningful,” Legos said in an interview at the meeting.
辉瑞目前正在测试西格沃妥单抗联合默克公司的畅销药Keytruda（帕博利珠单抗）治疗非小细胞肺癌患者。据莱戈斯称，这类患者更有可能对药物产生反应，因为他们接受的既往治疗较少，意味着他们的免疫系统功能应当更好。此外，希望通过在更早期阶段联合使用西格沃妥单抗，这两种药物能产生叠加效应。他表示，其他早期数据已显示出强劲的反应率。
Pfizer is currently testing sigvotatug vedotin alongside Merck & Co.’s blockbuster Keytruda in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. This population of patients is more likely to respond to the drugs because it received fewer prior treatments, meaning their immune system should function better, according to Legos. In addition, the hope is that by combining sigvotatug vedotin in this earlier setting, the two medicines will have an additive effect. Other early data have shown strong response rates, he said.
莱戈斯说：“基于所有这些原因，我们对正在进行的3期临床试验仍保持极度热情。”
“For all of those reasons, we remain incredibly enthusiastic about the ongoing phase 3 clinical trial,” Legos said.