AstraZeneca's lung cancer combination boosted survival in key study

By Ashleigh Furlong and Damian Garde

 

AstraZeneca Plc said its drug Tagrisso significantly lengthened the lives of some lung cancer patients when given with chemotherapy, the latest salvo in a highly competitive battle with Johnson & Johnson to offer the most potent medicine for the condition.

 

The combination helped patients with a specific type of advanced non-small cell lung cancer live for 47.5 months at the median, the longest survival benefit ever reported in a late-stage study of the condition, said Dave Fredrickson, executive vice president of Astra’s oncology business. It also had a manageable safety profile, the company said. 

 

The study presented Sunday at the World Conference on Lung Cancer in Barcelona found that adding chemotherapy boosted survival by nearly 10 months compared to Tagrisso alone, the company said. The combination is already approved based on earlier data, though its ability to lengthen life was unproven. 

 

“In the context of the competitive environment that we’ve been in, that’s also been a really important question,” Fredrickson said in an interview. “That question’s now being answered definitively.”

 

Tagrisso is already widely used for the tumors driven by EGFR genetic mutations, but it’s facing new rivals. J&J earlier this year presented head-to-head data showing patients on its combination therapy lived significantly longer than those taking Tagrisso alone, a difference the company expects to total a year or more of life once the study has concluded. 

 

Fredrickson dismissed the earlier J&J results as “just projections” that are hypothesis-generating at best. Astra’s results show Tagrisso plus chemotherapy could become the standard of care, particularly for patients who might have more aggressive disease or those who are younger and fitter, he said. 

 

J&J is counting on its regimen, which adds the intravenous medicine Rybrevant to a pill called Lazcluze, to eventually bring in more than $5 billion in annual revenue. 

 

The combination, approved last year, doesn’t require chemotherapy but has led to more severe side effects than Tagrisso alone. Updated data presented at the same conference showed J&J’s regimen caused higher rates of blood clots, rashes, fingernail infections and reactions at the site of the injection.

 

Tagrisso is Astra’s top selling cancer drug, bringing in $6.6 billion in 2024. Despite being first approved roughly a decade ago, its revenue is expected to grow in the coming years as Astra conducts studies exploring its benefits when used alongside other cancer drugs.