Patients with terminal lung cancer lived four times longer than doctors expected when given a new drug. MetMAb increased the survival time of cancer victims from three months to more than a year.

A clinical trial looked at cancer patients who were out of options — their cancer had spread and they were no longer responding to other treatments. When MetMAb was added to the cancer drug Tarceva, survival time increased dramatically.

The drug works in patients whose cancer cells contain high levels of a protein called MET, which causes cancer cells to grow and spread more rapidly.