Discontinued drugs in 2011: oncology drugs

This year's analysis of discontinued drugs in oncology reveals that the trend of increasing numbers of candidate drug development terminations seen in recent years has continued into 2011. Thirty-seven drugs were dropped from the global oncology development pipeline in 2011, significantly more than the 28 discontinuations reported in 2010. Of note were the number of terminations reported for strategic reasons and the striking number of drugs (23) discontinued in or at the end of Phase I development. This article provides a summary of those drugs discontinued in 2011 and discusses the observations in the context of the rapid changes occurring in the way new anticancer drugs are developed.