Merck says skin rash points to Erbitux' efficacy

FRANKFURT, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Merck KGaA (MRCG.DE) said its key drug Erbitux was shown to be particularly effective against lung cancer in patients that developed skin rashes during therapy, potentially shedding fresh light on how the drug works.

The finding comes from closer analysis of a Phase III study published in June, which pitted a combination of Erbitux and standard platinum-based chemotherapy against chemotherapy alone.

Just over half of the Erbitux-treated patients developed rashes early during therapy and this patient group had a median survival of 15 months, while survival of Erbitux patients without skin reaction was a mere 8.8 months, Merck said on Thursday.

Median overall survival of Erbitux patients was 11.3 months, about five weeks longer than those that received chemotherapy alone, the company said in June.

Trial participants were suffering from NSCLC, the most common form of lung cancer, and had been diagnosed with tumours that had started spreading.

Survival among patients with rashes "marks an outstanding signal of efficacy and opens the door to new treatment strategies in NSCLC," said Wolfgang Wein, the head of oncology at Merck's drug division.

Erbitux was originally discovered by U.S. biotech company ImClone IMCL.O, which sold the development and marketing rights to the drug outside the United States and Canada to Merck. Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY.N) and ImClone are marketing the drug in North America. (Reporting by Ludwig Burger; editing by Elaine Hardcastle)