June 3, 2016 — Novocure announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved its investigational device exemption (IDE) application to initiate the METIS trial. METIS is a multi-center, phase 3, pivotal, open-label study of radiosurgery with or without Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) for 1-10 brain metastases from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Two hundred seventy patients will be randomized 1:1 to receive either TTFields delivered at an output frequency of 150kHz with supportive care or supportive care alone after radiosurgery. The primary endpoint of the METIS trial is time to first cerebral progression. Secondary endpoints include, among others, time to neurocognitive failure, overall survival and radiological response rate following study treatments.
TTFields are low-intensity, alternating electric fields delivered to the region of a tumor. They exert forces on key electrically charged molecules essential to the mitotic process by which all cells divide. Interference with the normal functioning of these key molecules leads to cell death through multiple pathways. Treatment with TTFields, delivered via Optune, is currently approved in the United States and European Union for newly diagnosed and recurrent glioblastoma and in Japan for recurrent glioblastoma. METIS will be Novocure’s first phase 3 pivotal trial outside of glioblastoma. Novocure has ongoing or completed phase 2 pilot trials in brain metastases, non-small cell lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.
Metastatic cancer is cancer that has spread from the place where it first started to another place in the body. The exact incidence of brain metastases is unknown because no national cancer registry documents brain metastases, but it has been estimated that 98,000 to 170,000 new cases are diagnosed in the United States each year. Brain metastases cause an estimated 20 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States annually.
Tumor Treating Fields are not approved for the treatment of brain metastases by the FDA. The safety and effectiveness of TTFields therapy for brain metastases has not been established.
For more information: www.novocure.com
