AstraZeneca biliary cancer drug shows improved survival rate in patients

pharmafile | October 25, 2021 | News story | Sales and Marketing  

AstraZeneca has announced that its Imfinzi drug­­­, for the treatment of biliary tract cancer, has improved overall survival in patients when combined with chemotherapy. AstraZeneca have stated that the drug, Imfinzi, has proven a “statistically significantly and clinically meaningful overall survival benefit versus chemotherapy alone” for patients with advanced biliary tract cancer.

The positive results from the Topaz-1 Phase III trial showed that Imfinzi, in combination with standard-of-care chemotherapy, was well tolerated, had a similar safety profile versus the comparator arm, and did not increase the discontinuation rate due to adverse events compared to chemotherapy alone.

The independent data monitoring committee stated that “The combination also demonstrated an improvement in progression-free survival and overall response rate, key secondary endpoints.”

Imfinzi is the first immunotherapy combination to demonstrate superior clinical outcomes over standard of care in a global, randomised trial in this setting.

Biliary Tract Cancers are a group of aggressive cancers that occur in the bile ducts and gallbladder. They are the second most common primary liver malignancy, accounting for 15% of all primary liver tumors and 3% of gastrointestinal cancers. Approximately 50,000 people in the US, Europe and Japan, and about 210,000 worldwide, are diagnosed with BTC each year. These patients have a poor prognosis, and approximately only 5-15% of all patients with BTC survive five years.

This follows the news that Imfinxi demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful overall survival benefit as a 1st-line treatment for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). HCC is the most common primary tumor of the liver, making up around 75% of all primary liver cancers.

Ana Ovey

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