AstraZeneca boosts oncology credentials with breast cancer trial success

AstraZeneca said its Enhertu cancer drug has been shown to significantly help women suffering from a type of breast cancer that leaves them with poor treatment options, opening the door to a much larger potential patient group.

AstraZeneca, which is working on the drug with Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo, said on Monday that Enhertu prolonged survival and slowed the progression of metastatic breast cancer with low levels of a protein known as HER2.

The improvement was “clinically meaningful” when compared with standard chemotherapy, it said, adding that detailed results of the late-stage trial would be presented at an as-yet undisclosed medical conference.

The company said it would reach out to regulatory agencies to enable a speedy review of a wider use for the drug.

While the study was limited to low-HER2 patients whose tumours had spread to other parts of the body, analysts have said a positive trial read-out could portend future use at earlier stages of the disease with potentially hundreds of thousands of new eligible patients per year.

via Reuters