AstraZeneca unveils successes in treatment of lung cancer

AstraZeneca unveiled successes in the treatment of lung cancer on Monday, with its leading drug slowing progression of the disease at an early stage.

Its best-selling Tagrisso drug showed a “statistically significant and highly clinically meaningful” improvement in preventing the progression of a version of the most common form of the disease, the company said.

The trial will continue to assess overall survival rates of the treatment, with current data showing a “favourable trend”.

Shares edged 3 per cent higher to £104 by Monday afternoon following the news.

The Tagrisso trial was designed for patients with non-small cell lung cancer, the most common form, who have a so-called epidermal growth factor receptor mutation, which is prevalent in 10 to 15 per cent of cases in Europe and the US and up to 40 per cent in Asia.

“Sometimes people are too nihilistic about lung cancer. If you diagnose it early, you can make a difference to this disease. These data reinforce that message,” said Susan Galbraith, executive vice-president of oncology R&D at AstraZeneca.

The company would present more precise survival data from the Tagrisso trial at a conference later this year, she added.

Tagrisso earned $5.8bn in sales in 2023 — 13 per cent of AstraZeneca’s total oncology sales — making it the company’s highest earner.

AstraZeneca also announced on Monday that the drug had been approved to be used alongside chemotherapy in the US to treat the same form of lung cancer at an advanced stage, where it extended progression-free survival by almost nine months.

In addition, the company said it was progressing towards US approval of an innovative cancer drug Datopotamab deruxtecan for the treatment of patients with advanced lung cancer.

The drug, known as Dato-DXd, is an antibody drug conjugate that offers more targeted cancer care than traditional chemotherapy drugs.

Dato-DXd, which has been developed with Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo, and Enhertu, another AstraZeneca treatment, are considered by analysts to be potentially high-earning drugs.

“This represents the opportunity to bring an innovative, new medicine to patients with lung cancer, to replace backbone, conventional chemotherapy,” said Galbraith.

The company has outlined ambitions for about half of all lung cancer patients to be eligible for AstraZeneca treatments by 2030.

“They’ve made quite a claim that they have the pipeline to deliver industry-leading growth,” said Sean Conroy, an analyst at Shore Capital Markets.

While the announcements were “largely expected, they all incrementally help to make that 2030 ambition look more deliverable”.