Earlier this week, the US Food and Drug administration panel voted to not allow Tarceva for lung cancer patients who remain stable after chemotherapy.

Tarceva is already used as the second round of defense to fight against lung cancer in patients who’s symptoms continue to worsen after the first round of chemotherapy.

According to the FDA, those who used Tarceva earlier did see less progression of the disease than those who got a placebo in the study, however the benefits were too small to consider it for earlier use.

Wyndham Wilson of the National Cancer Institute commented, “We all agree that if the overall survival benefit was larger … we would be more impressed.”

Both Tarceva and docetaxel, have shown to improve survival of lung cancer patients by about three months if started after the cancer has advanced.