As­traZeneca’s $7B ADC suc­ceeds where Roche failed, im­prov­ing sur­vival in gas­tric can­cer

An­oth­er day, an­oth­er win for En­her­tu.

The an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate As­traZeneca promised up-to $7 bil­lion to part­ner on has had a quite a few months, be­gin­ning with splashy re­sults in a Phase II breast can­cer tri­al, a rapid ap­proval and, ear­li­er this month, break­through des­ig­na­tions in both non-small cell lung can­cer and gas­tric can­cer.

Now, at AS­CO, the British phar­ma and their Japan­ese part­ner, Dai­ichi Sankyo, have shown off the da­ta that led to the gas­tric can­cer des­ig­na­tion, which they’ll take back to the FDA. In a piv­otal, 187-per­son Phase II tri­al, En­her­tu shrunk tu­mors in 42.9% of third-line pa­tients with HER2-pos­i­tive stom­ach can­cer, com­pared with 12.5% in a con­trol arm where doc­tors pre­scribed their choice of ther­a­py. Pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival was 5.4 months for En­her­tu com­pared to 3.5 months for the con­trol.

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