Pfizer plans to test a combination of three novel cancer drugs in humans next year, as the US drugmaker seeks to make up lost ground in the race to develop a new generation of “immunotherapy” medicines that turn the body into a weapon against tumours.
The “triplet” trial will be one of the first to test three immunotherapies at the same time, and will involve giving a small group of patients a cocktail of drugs to determine whether the combination is safe, and whether it can shrink tumours in those suffering from solid cancers.
Pfizer has fallen behind rivals such as Bristol-Myers Squibb and US Merck, which have already launched the first wave of immunotherapies, known as checkpoint inhibitors. These drugs remove brakes in the body’s immune system that stop it from attacking tumours, and have shown they can extend the lives of patients with very poor prognoses.