AstraZeneca presented data from a study that indicates Tagrisso (osimertinib) has the potential to be a treatment option for patients with one type of advanced lung cancer.
The drug underwent a late phase trial on patients with a type of advanced non-small cell lung cancer.
The results were presented at the 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Vienna, Austria, hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and published online in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Sean Bohen, chief medical officer at AstraZeneca, said: “The confirmatory Phase III data suggest the potential for Tagrisso to replace chemotherapy as the standard of care for patients who have progressed following EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment. As lung cancer is the most common type of cancer to spread to the brain, it is also encouraging to see the activity of Tagrisso in patients with central nervous system metastases whose prognosis is often particularly poor.”
Dr. Vassiliki A Papadimitrakopoulou, from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, said: “The results of AURA3 are not only statistically significant, but clinically meaningful because it is the first time a targeted medicine like Tagrisso has shown improvement in progression-free survival over standard platinum-pemetrexed chemotherapy. It’s very rewarding to be able to give this type of news to patients, as it highlights the major advances we are making in targeted lung cancer treatments.”
The data for AURA3 are consistent with those previously presented in the Phase II trials.
Tagrisso has been granted accelerated approval for a type of lung cancer.
