AstraZeneca’s immunotherapy drug, Imfinzi, has shown promise in extending the lives of early-stage lung cancer patients by nearly two years, a significant finding revealed at a recent clinical trial. The drug was used after initial chemotherapy and radiation treatments on patients suffering from small cell lung cancer,
restrained to one side of the chest, a stage known as “limited stage” disease. The objective: to postpone the recurrence of the disease. The current norm is radiation therapy to stave off the cancer’s spread to the brain. But, this is changing. The “Adriatic” study is revolutionizing the approach to therapy. The consensus among experts at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, was positive. A highlight came from Dr. Erminia Massarelli, a prominent authority on lung cancer at City of Hope in California.
She emphasized the significance of integrating an immune checkpoint inhibitor into maintenance therapy. If approved by regulators, Imfinzi’s use will broaden against lung cancer beyond its current scope, which complements Roche’s own immunotherapy drug, Tecentriq. Amgen’s newly approved drug, Imdelltra, also used after chemotherapy,
may emerge as a competitor. Further data from the ASCO conference included an interim analysis of 264 patients who were treated with Imfinzi, where the death risk was reduced by 27% compared to a placebo group. Remarkably, the median survival rate for those on Imfinzi was 56 months from trial entry, 23 months longer than those given a placebo. Moreover, the drug lessened the risk of cancer advancement by 24%. Dr. Lauren Byers,
a specialist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, lauded Adriatic as groundbreaking, setting a new treatment benchmark. In her view, the extended overall survival period of two years, is a vast improvement over previous trials. AstraZeneca pocketed $4.2 billion last year from Imfinzi, making it a significant revenue earner, and one poised to boost the company’s ambition of achieving $80 billion in annual sales by 2030.