By Bhanvi Satija
(Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday its chemotherapy-free combination treatment showed a meaningful improvement in extending lives of patients with a type of lung cancer, compared to AstraZeneca’s blockbuster drug Tagrisso.
The combination of J&J’s cancer drugs Rybrevant and lazertinib, approved in August for previously untreated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with an EGFR mutation, showed a statistically significant improvement in median overall survival, meeting a key secondary goal of a late-stage study.
But the company did not disclose the exact details in terms of life extension compared to AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso, which has shown to help extend lives of such NSCLC patients by 38.6 months on average in a separate study.
J&J said it will disclose details of the Tagrisso arm of its study at an upcoming medical meeting, and also plans to share full overall survival data with health authorities.
“Our expectation (is) that we’re going to see an improvement in that median overall survival exceeding a year,” said Mark Wildgust, who heads J&J’s global medical affairs for oncology.
“We’re going to put that median overall survival beyond four years,” he added.
Some analysts have previously said that doctors might prefer to use a single therapy over combinations for previously untreated patients, but a better survival rate could tip the scale in their favor.
“Physicians always look for the best option in the front line, and when they define what the best option is, they look for overall survival that they will give to their patients,” said Biljana Naumovic, who oversees J&J’s commercial strategy for cancer treatments.
NSCLC is the most common type of lung cancer, and the EGFR mutation occurs in 10-15% of the cases in the United States, according to data from the American Lung Association.
(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
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