Whats next for adjuvant Avastin?
Despite the possibilities offered by Wolmark’s interpretation, future studies will wait on the findings of a Roche study in the same setting. The AVANT study, which is running 6-12 months behind (and thus could have results in 2010), has two bevacizumab arms: one added to a FOLFOX regimen and one added to a XELOX regimen. However, it does not include a longer duration – and thus does not test Wolmark’s idea that perhaps two years is better than one. The Roche/Genentech perspective – shared at an analyst meeting that night – is that the firms are looking ahead to the rest of the adjuvant program, especially AVANT. The companies certainly acknowledged that the C-08 trial was a disappointment, but shifted the focus to emphasize the positive take-aways: there was a significant treatment effect while patients were actually on Avastin, and “in adjuvant settings, the duration of treatment is important,” Genentech VP-Clinical Development for Avastin Philippe Bishop stated. Predicting any chang
