Merck Serono Resumes Stimuvax Clinical Program in Lung Cancer

June 17, 2010 - FDA lifts clinical hold on START clinical trial – Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA (Darmstadt, Germany), and its U.S. affiliate, EMD Serono, Inc. announced that they are resuming their Stimuvax® (BLP25 liposome vaccine*) clinical program in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which includes the Phase III studies, STARTa and INSPIREb. The treatment and enrollment in these studies will restart after approval by the local regulatory authorities and ethics committees.
“Merck Serono remains highly committed to the development of BLP25 liposome vaccine and the well-being of the patients. We believe this therapeutic cancer vaccine has the potential to be a valuable addition to the future range of therapies for oncologists and their patients,”... [PDF] Merck Serono's Press Release -

MERCK SERONO SUBMITS NEW LICENSE APPLICATION FOR ERBITUX IN FIRST-LINE NON-SMALL CELL LUNG CANCER IN EUROPE

September 11, 2008 – Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, announced that it has submitted an application to the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) to license Erbitux® (cetuximab) for the first-line treatment of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expressing, advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The submission is supported by data from the Phase III FLEXa study presented this year at the plenary session of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting. The study demonstrated a significant increase in overall survival for patients receiving Erbitux in combination with a platinum-based chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for advanced NSCLC... [PDF] Merck Serono's Press Release -