Merrimack Pharmaceuticals said today it will cease development of its pancreatic cancer candidate MM-141 (istiratumab) following its failure in a Phase II trial. MM-141 missed its primary and secondary endpoints in the Phase II CARRIE trial ( NCT02399137 ), designed to assess the addition of the drug candidate to standard-of-care treatment in patients with previously untreated metastatic pancreatic cancer and high serum levels of free Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1). The trial enrolled 88 patients who were randomized 1:1 to treatment and control arms to assess MM-141, in combination with the standard-of-care chemotherapy (nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine), versus chemotherapy plus placebo. MM-141 plus nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine failed to show statistically significant improvement in efficacy compared to nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine alone. The results were consistent in all subgroups analyzed, Merrimack said. The primary endpoint of the CARRIE trial was progression-free survival, while secondary endpoints included objective response rate, disease ...