As­traZeneca/Mer­ck come out of AS­CO GU with a big win over J&J in bat­tle over prostate can­cer fran­chis­es

The AS­CO GU con­fer­ence has been spot­light­ing some key ad­vances  — and set­backs — for some of the top can­cer drugs on the mar­ket.

At the top of the win list is As­traZeneca’s Lyn­parza, their mar­ket-lead­ing PARP in­hibitor shared with Mer­ck. Added with J&J’s 25-year-old prostate can­cer drug Zyti­ga (abi­raterone) in the Phase III PRO­pel study for metasta­t­ic cas­tra­tion-re­sis­tant prostate can­cer de­liv­ered a ra­di­ograph­ic PFS of 24.8 months, com­pared to 16.6 months for Zyti­ga alone in front­line cas­es. The drug al­so worked for pa­tients with or with­out HRR mu­ta­tions. That’s the kind of ad­van­tage that can­cer docs are al­ways on the look­out for, and Cowen quick­ly flagged it as a like­ly short­cut to a new stan­dard of care in the field.

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