(Alliance News) - AstraZenea PLC on Monday shared several positive developments for its oncology pipeline, which will be presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress 2022 in Paris.
Interim analysis from the Destiny-Lung02 phase II trial showed Enhertu, or trastuzumab deruxtecan, showed clinically meaningful tumour response in patients with HER2-mutant unresectable and/or metastatic non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer, who had undergone treatment previously.
Enhertu is a HER2-direct antibody-drug conjugate, co-developed and commercialised with Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd.
"Destiny-Lung02 reinforces HER2 as an actionable mutation in patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer and further demonstrates that Enhertu provides a clinically meaningful tumour response for these patients who have historically had limited treatment options. The response seen in this trial, along with the disease control observed support Enhertu as a potential treatment option in this type of non-small cell lung cancer," explained Koichi Goto, medical oncologist & investigator at National Cancer Center Hospital East, in Kashiwa, Japan.
The Cambridge, England-based pharmaceutical firm also said four-year follow-up results of the Poseiden phase III trial showed Imfinzi, or durvalumab showed a sustained improvement in overall survival in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, "nearly doubling the number of patients alive after three years". The trial compared Imfinzi plus chemotherapy, to chemotherapy alone.
Imfinzi plus chemotherapy also proved effective at improving overall survival for patients with advanced biliary tract cancer, according to updated results from the Topaz-1 phase III trial. Biliary tract cancer is a group of rare and aggressive cancers that form in the bile ducts, gallbladder, and ampulla of Vater - the connection of the bile duct and pancreatic duct to the small intestine.
The combination showed a 24% reduction in the risk of death compared to chemotherapy alone.
In addition, it shared new data for Tagrisso, or osimertinib, an epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor, from the Adaura phase III trial. Tagrisso showed a "sustained, clinically meaningful improvement" in disease-free survival as an adjuvant treatment when compared to a placebo, in patients with early-stage epidermal growth factor receptor mutated non-small cell lung cancer.
"A median [disease-free survival] of nearly five and a half years, 65.8 months, was seen in both the primary and overall populations treated with Tagrisso, compared to 21.9 and 28.1 months in the primary and overall populations, respectively, treated with placebo," Astra explained.
Tagrisso was also shown to reduce the risk of recurring tumours in the central nervous system "over time". The spread of tumours to the brain or spinal cord is a frequent complication of EGFR-mutated NSCLC, which is associated with an "especially poor prognosis".
Shares in AstraZeneca were 0.4% lower at 10,458.00 pence each in London on Monday morning.
By Elizabeth Winter; elizabethwinter@alliancenews.com
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