New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, seeking approval for the marketing of axitinib as a treatment for advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) for patients who failed to benefit from systemic treatment, has filed the oral drug with the European Medicines Agency!

Though Pfizer’s submission to the European Union (EU) regulators is largely based on Phase III data from the AXIS 1032 trial, axitinib is reportedly in another Phase III trial in patients with treatment-naive and also earlier-treated advanced RCC; as well as in Phase II for hepatocellular carcinoma. Pfizer is also running other clinical trials of axitinib in kidney cancer and liver cancer.

Axitinib – one of Pfizer's top drug candidates – is designed to block receptors which influence the growth of tumor, blood vessel growth, and spread of cancers; and the drug chiefly inhibits vascular endothelial growth factor receptors 1, 2 and 3.

Already, in May, Pfizer had stated that axitinib had met its chief objective in a late-stage clinical trial, with patients who were administered the drug reportedly surviving longer without disease progression, vis-à-vis patients who were treated with an older cancer drug Nexavar.

The approval of axitinib as a treatment for kidney cancer may be a noteworthy move; especially with Garry Nicholson – chief of the Pfizer Oncology Business Unit – noting that even though the prognosis for patients with advanced RCC “has improved dramatically over the past five years”, largely due to the availability of new treatments, there is still a need for “new options”!