by Ludwig Burger
(Reuters) – Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said on Monday its breast cancer treatment has been shown to be effective for women with a type of the disease for which treatment options are limited, opening the door to a group of much larger potential patients.
The British-Swedish group, which is working on the drug with Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo, said Enhertu prolongs the survival of the patients in question and, citing low levels of the HER2 protein, slows the progression of metastatic breast cancer.
Enhertu belongs to antibody-drug conjugates or ADP (antibody-drug conjugate), a class of drugs designed as a targeted therapy for cancers.
The improvement was “clinically significant” compared to standard chemotherapy, AstraZeneca said, adding that detailed results of the late-stage clinical trial would be presented at a medical conference, the date of which however, was not disclosed.
“(Patients with low levels of) HER2 represent a large and previously untreated patient pool in breast cancer,” the Credit Suisse analysts said.
While the study was narrowed down to patients with low HER2 levels whose tumors had spread to other parts of the body, analysts noted, however, that a positive trial reading could allow the treatment to be used at an early stage of the disease and thus potentially target hundreds of thousands of new eligible patients each year.
The company also said it would contact regulatory agencies to allow rapid consideration of broader use of the drug.
The title AstraZeneca showed an increase of 2.5% in the middle of the day.
(With the contribution of Pushkala Aripaka, French version Juliette Portala, edited by Jean-Michel Bélot)
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