Xalkori And The Art Of Modern Drug Development

It is rare to hear of a scientific discovery turning into a marketed product in just four years. But that’s what Pfizer Inc. managed to do with Xalkori (crizotinib), its oral, small molecule inhibitor of c-Met and ALK. The ALK discovery came to light in August 2007, and was well-timed for Pfizer, which had crizotinib in development as a c-MET inhibitor – unsuccessfully. But Pfizer, a pharma giant that has seen more than its share of development failures, was able to turn the program around and obtain an unprecedented approval based on Phase I data a mere four years after identifying an ALK rearrangement as the target. It remains to be seen whether the speed and sure-footedness of that approval can be replicated, or if it was a rare case of capturing lightning in a bottle.

What is remarkable about the crizotinib development program was Pfizer’s ability to capitalize on a scientific discovery. It took a...