AstraZeneca on Wednesday (April 5) said a combination of its cancer drugs Imfinzi and Lynparza met the main goal in a late-stage trial in patients with advanced ovarian cancer.
The drugmaker said treatment with a combination of those drugs, along with chemotherapy and bevacizumab - the existing standard of care - improved progression-free survival in newly diagnosed patients with advanced ovarian cancer without certain mutations.
Lynparza is jointly developed with U.S.-based Merck & Co as a treatment for breast cancer in early stage with certain mutations. Imfinzi alone, along with chemotherapy and bevacizumab, did not reach statistical significance in its interim analysis, the drugmaker added.
Philipp Harter, director, Department of Gynaecology and Gynaecologic Oncology, Evangelische Kliniken Essen-Mitte, Germany and principal investigator for the trial, said: "DUO-O showcases the power of academia and industry collaboration in advancing new treatment combinations for patients with ovarian cancer. I’m grateful for the academic cooperative study groups and patients around the world that made this trial possible and look forward to sharing the results with the clinical community."
Susan Galbraith, executive vice president, Oncology R&D, AstraZeneca, said: "While there has been significant progress for patients with advanced ovarian cancer, an unmet need still remains. These data from the DUO-O trial provide encouraging evidence for this this Lynparza and Imfinzi combination in patients without tumour BRCA mutations and reinforce our continued commitment to finding new treatment approaches for these patients. It will be important to understand the key secondary endpoints as well as data for relevant subgroups.”
The company added that safety and tolerability of these combinations were broadly consistent with that observed in prior clinical trials and the known profiles of the individual medicines.
The data will be presented at forthcoming medical meetings and shared with health authorities, it added.
