Blayney DW, Zhang Q, Feng J, et al. - In patients suffering from non–small lung cancer (NSCLC). researchers undertook this randomized, open-label, phase 2 clinical trial with four treatment arms to evaluate the efficacy as well as the safety of plinabulin (a novel, non–granulocyte colony-stimulating factor small molecule) vs pegfilgrastim for the prophylaxis of chemotherapy-induced neutropenia after docetaxel chemotherapy. Adult NSCLC patients with disease progression following platinum-based chemotherapy were included. All patients were treated with docetaxel 75 mg/m² on day 1 and were randomized to 1 of 3 doses of plinabulin (5, 10, or 20 mg/m²) on day 1 or to pegfilgrastim 6 mg on day 2. A comparable neutropenia protection benefit was seen with pegfilgrastim and single dose-per-cycle plinabulin. In the phase 3 part of this trial, researchers will compare plinabulin 40 mg fixed dose (which is pharmacologically equivalent to 20 mg/m²) and pegfilgrastim 6 mg.