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(Alliance News) - AstraZeneca PLC on Tuesday announced a mixed bag of results for two of its leading cancer drugs Imfinzi and Tagrisso.
Shares in AstraZeneca rose 0.6% to 12,548.00 pence on Tuesday morning. The wider FTSE 100 was up 0.1%.
The Cambridge-based pharmaceutical company said Imfinzi met both its primary and secondary aims in a trial on sufferers of bladder cancer.
Imfinzi showed a "statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement" in event-free survival, meeting its primary endpoint, the company said.
Event-free survival is the length of time after a treatment ends that the patient remains free of complications. The secondary endpoint of improved overall survival versus neoadjuvant chemotherapy was also met.
The findings came from the Niagara Phase III trial which involved 1,063 patients in 22 countries.
"The Niagara results support our strategy to move immunotherapy to the early stages of cancer treatment. This perioperative regimen with Imfinzi improved survival and reduced the rate at which patients experience disease recurrence or progression. We are eager to bring this regimen with the potential to transform the standard of care to patients as soon as possible," Astra's Oncology R&D Executive Vice President Susan Galbraith said.
Less promisingly, in another trial, Imfinzi did not achieve "statistical significance for the primary endpoint of disease-free survival" versus placebo among non-small cell lung cancer sufferers.
Galbraith said the firm was "disappointed" by the results.
"Imfinzi has helped change the treatment landscape and achieved multiple positive Phase III trials for patients with earlier stages of lung cancer. We are committed to addressing the remaining unmet need in lung cancer through our broad development programme," Galbraith added.
The Adjuvant BR.31 trial involved 1,415 patients in 19 countries.
Elsewhere, Astra noted Tagrisso, with the addition of a form of chemotherapy, has been backed in Japan as a first-line treatment for some adult sufferers of non-small cell lung cancer.
Results showed Tagrisso with the addition of chemotherapy reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 38% by investigator assessment compared to Tagrisso monotherapy, AstraZeneca said in a statement.
Dave Fredrickson, executive vice president at AstraZeneca's Oncology Business unit said: "Today's approval in Japan solidifies Tagrisso as the backbone therapy for patients with EGFR-mutated lung cancer either in combination with chemotherapy or as monotherapy, now providing two effective first-line treatment options. The opportunity to combine Tagrisso with chemotherapy is especially important for those patients with a poorer prognosis, such as those whose disease has spread to the brain or those with L858R mutations."
The safety profile of Tagrisso plus chemotherapy was consistent with the established profiles of the individual medicines, AstraZeneca said.
Tagrisso is approved as monotherapy in more than 100 countries including in the US, EU, China and Japan.
In addition, BenevolentAI, a leader in applying advanced artificial intelligence to accelerate biopharma drug discovery, said AstraZeneca has added a novel target for systemic lupus erythematosus to its discovery portfolio through a joint collaboration.
BenevolentAI's strategic collaboration with AstraZeneca began in 2019 in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and chronic kidney disease, with the collaboration expanded in January 2022 to include heart failure and SLE.
The success follows the announcement last month that AstraZeneca had selected a novel heart failure target to enter its portfolio.
By Jeremy Cutler, Alliance News reporter
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