I wrote in a post several months ago about the ongoing study of the monoclonal entibody against EGFR erbitux (cetuximab) in lung cancer, where it's role is still up in the air. Unlike the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) iressa and tarceva, which showed no benefit when given concurrently with standard chemo, erbitux has a different mechanism and may still be useful when given along with chemo.

It's a little sad that you can get more cancer information from the business websites than from the medical ones, but if you checked a story on Forbes.com today you learned that Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) provided a press release that one of their important Erbitux (cetuximab) trials didn't meet its primary endpoint of improved progression-free

Yesterday I reviewed a series of studies of the EGFR monoclonal antibody cetixumab, or Erbitux, combined with chemotherapy. Overall, these trials are modestly encouraging, without what I would consider to be a potential antagonistic effect when chemo and EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) like Iressa or Tarceva. However, we still don't have studies big enough to establish any role for erbitux. Today, I'll cover the very limited experience of single-agent Erbitux in advanced NSCLC.

Most of the discussion with about inhibiting the EGFR axis in lung cancer has focused on the orally available tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) that work inside the cells. However, another way to inhibit the cells is by giving an IV "monoclonal antibody" which is a protein that attaches to the outside of the cell at the EGFR target and can block activity. A figure of the two approaches is shown here, with the antibody circled in red: