Trials show AstraZeneca's Lynparza delaying pancreatic cancer progression

(Sharecast News) - AstraZeneca announced on Monday that its Lynparza pancreatic cancer drug has returned positive phase three trial results, doubling the amount of patients with no disease progression.Three-year overall survival data showed no disease progression at one year for 34% of patients using Lynparza versus 15% on placebos, while 22% of patients with Lynparza had no progression compared to 15% on placebo after two years in multi-centre trials that saw subjects taking two 300mg doses per day.The FTSE 100-traded company said that Lynparza improved the time without disease progression by a median of 7.4 months compared to 3.8 months with placebo in patients with germline BRCA-mutated metastatic pancreatic cancer.José Baselga, executive vice president of oncology research & development, said: "These unprecedented results raise new hope for patients that have seen little progress over a long period of time. From as early as six months after initiation, more than twice as many patients taking Lynparza lived without progression of their disease compared to those on placebo and we are now working with regulatory authorities to bring Lynparza to patients as quickly as possible."The drug is a first-in-class PARP inhibitor and blocks DNA damage response in cells and tumours harbouring a deficiency in homologous recombination repair, leading to the trapping of PARP bound to DNA single-strand breaks, stalling of replication forks, their collapse and the generation of DNA double-strand breaks and cancer cell death.The drug is currently approved in over 60 countries, including those in the EU, for the maintenance treatment of platinum-sensitive relapsed ovarian cancer, and in the US, Canada and Brazil as a maintenance treatment of BRCAm advanced ovarian cancer following response to platinum-based chemotherapyAstraZeneca's shares were down 0.60% at 5,798.00p at 0801 BST.