Fruquintinib is a highly selective inhibitor of VEGFR-1, -2 and -3 kinases, and showed promising activity against solid tumors, including NSCLC, in a phase 1 trial. The current phase 2 trial evaluated the efficacy and safety of single-agent fruquintinib in 91 patients with advanced nonsquamous NSCLC. All patients had experienced disease progression after two lines of standard chemotherapy, and were randomly assigned to be treated with either fruquintinib (n = 61) or placebo (n = 30).
At data cutoff for PFS analysis, a total of 46 patients (75.4%) in the fruquintinib group and 25 (83.3%) in the placebo group had experienced a PFS event. The median follow-up for survival was 28.0 months for fruquintinib and 25.4 months for the placebo group.
Both the 3- and 6-month survival rates were numerically higher for patients receiving fruquintinib group versus placebo (90.2% vs. 73.3% for 3-month survival and 67.2% vs. 58.8% for 6-month survival).
The results for other secondary endpoints showed a more favorable overall response rate for fruquintinib vs placebo (13.1% vs 0%; P = .041), as was the disease control rate (60.7% vs 13.3%; P less than .001).