Inclusion Criteria:

male or female patients aged 18 years or older with histologically or cytologically confirmed advanced or metastatic NSCLC of stage IIIB or IV, who relapsed or failed prior first-line chemotherapy for advanced or metastatic disease. At least one tumour lesion must be present that can accurately be measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or computed tomography (CT) in at least one dimension (longest diameter to be recorded) as 20 mm or greater with conventional techniques or as 10 mm or greater with spiral CT scan. Life expectancy of at least three months; Eastern co-operative oncology group (ECOG) performance score of 2 or less and written informed consent which must be consistent with international conference on harmonisation good clinical practice (ICH-GCP) and local legislation

Exclusion Criteria:

persistence of toxicities of prior anti cancer therapies which are deemed to be clinically relevant, known secondary malignancy requiring therapy, brain metastases which are symptomatic or require therapy, absolute neutrophil count less than 1,500/mm3, platelet count less than 100,000/mm3, haemoglobin less than 9 mg/dl, aspartate amino transferase (AST) or alanine amino transferase (ALT) greater than 2.5 times the upper limit of normal, or AST or ALT greater than 5 times the upper limit of normal in case of known liver metastases, bilirubin greater than 1.5 mg/dl, serum creatinine greater than 2.0 mg/dl, concomitant intercurrent illnesses that would limit compliance with trial requirement or which are considered relevant for the evaluation of the efficacy or safety of the trial drug, chemo-, hormone- or immunotherapy within the past four weeks or within less than four half-life times of the previous drug prior to treatment with the trial drug (whatever is the longest period), radiotherapy within the past four weeks prior to treatment with the trial drug, men or women who are sexually active and unwilling to use a medically acceptable method of contraception during the trial, pregnancy or lactation, treatment with any other investigational drug within the past four weeks or within less than four half-life times of the investigational drug before treatment with the trial drug (whatever is the longest period), patient unable to comply with the protocol, patients who are considered eligible by the investigator for other second-line chemotherapy, radiotherapy or immunotherapy, patients who have received more than two lines of prior anti-tumour therapy for advanced or metastatic non small cell lung cancer