Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc. provided an update from its internal review of discrepancies from its Phase II randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial of bavituximab in second-line non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in 121 patients. The review was prompted by the discovery of vial coding discrepancies while preparing for an end of Phase II meeting with the FDA. The internal review included a thorough operational review of multiple third-party vendor operations at sites worldwide, testing of investigational product used in the trial, additional patient sample testing to determine drug levels and a review of immunogenicity testing results from the trial.

The results of the extensive internal review indicate that discrepancies are isolated to the placebo and 1 mg/kg treatment arms of the trial and that there was no evidence of discrepancies in the 3 mg/kg treatment arm of the trial. Based on the results of the internal review, the company is taking a very conservative approach toward analyzing the results from the trial which included combining the placebo and 1mg/kg arms into one treatment arm (control arm), and comparing those results to the 3mg/kg arm. This analysis indicates that the 3 mg/kg arm continues to show favorable tumor response rates, progression-free survival and overall survival (OS) over the new combined control arm.