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CHICAGO: AstraZeneca and Lynkza from Merck & Co have helped patients with advanced pancreatic cancer carriers with a BRCA gene mutation without their disease worsening compared to those who received a placebo, according to data from an advanced-stage clinical trial presented on Sunday.
BRCA mutations are usually related to bad and ovarian cancers, but also occur in other cancers.
Lynparza was tested against a placebo as a maintenance treatment in 154 patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer whose tumors had not progressed after chemotherapy.
Those who received the Merck and AstraZeneca medications on average went 7.4 months before their illness began to worsen, a measure known as progression-free survival (PFS). This compared a median PFS of 3.8 months for placebo, according to data presented at the meeting of the American College of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.
Patients were screened for BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations using the Myriad Genetics BRACAnalysis CDx baday.
The discovery is significant for 6 to 7% of patients with pancreatic cancer carriers of these hereditary mutations.
"It was clearly positive," said Dr. Eileen O. Reilly, a pancreatic cancer specialist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who helped lead the study.
O'Reilly said the findings reinforced the National Comprehensive Cancer Network's new guidelines recommending the universal BRCA test for all patients with pancreatic cancer.
Mutations in the BRCA genes prevent the repair of DNA damage, which can lead to cancer growth. Lynparza and other drugs of the clbad known as PARP inhibitors exploit this weakness, preventing cancer cells damaged by chemotherapy from repairing themselves. Lynparza became the first PARP drug to be marketed with US approval for ovarian cancer in late 2014.
An interim badysis, however, showed that the drug made no significant difference in overall survival.
"We usually observe between 10 and 12 months" for the overall survival of these patients, said O & # 39; Reilly. Patients from both arms of the Lynparza study lived about 18 to 19 months.
Dr. Roy Baynes, Chief Medical Officer of Merck, said the hope is that a delay in cancer progression translates into longer survival.
"In pancreatic cancer, progress has been very slow, so it's really exciting data for patients with the BRCA mutation," Baynes said.
Lynparza is an important growth engine for AstraZeneca, having generated a business turnover of 647 million US dollars last year. Analysts forecast revenues of $ 2.5 billion from this drug in 2023, according to Refinitiv data. The use in pancreatic cancer in addition to bad and ovarian cancer would increase Lynparza's sales and strengthen its lead over competing PARP inhibitors Rubraca from Clovis Oncology, GSK's Zejula and Talazoparib from Pfizer.
(Report by Julie Steenhuysen, additional report by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt, edited by Bill Berkrot)
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