ZURICH, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Roche's Tecentriq has wonEuropean approval for use against a tough-to-treat breastcancer, helping the Swiss drugmaker to widen use of animmunotherapy that has so far been eclipsed in revenue terms bymore-established rival medicines.
The European Commission approved Tecentriq with Abraxane forpeople with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer that testspositive for a protein believed to help tumours to evade attackby the body's immune system, Roche said on Thursday.
Tecentriq trailed rival immunotherapies Keytruda and Opdivo- produced by Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibbrespectively - to market but has been racking up approvals.
These include approvals for niche indications such asmetastatic triple-negative breast cancer. Some 15-20% of breastcancer is triple-negative, meaning tumours lack threecharacteristics for which there are more treatment options.
"The European approval of this Tecentriq combinationrepresents a significant step forward in the treatment of thisaggressive breast cancer, where the unmet medical need isgreat," Roche Chief Medical Officer Sandra Horning said in astatement.
Tecentriq, having steadily added approvals in new cancerindications and new geographies, is on track to surpass $1.5billion in annual sales in 2019, its third full year on themarket.
Opdivo and Keytruda, which had a two-year head start onTecentriq, achieved sales of $6.7 billion and $7.2 billionrespectively in 2018.
(Reporting by John MillerEditing by David Goodman)