Roche’s ‘suc­cess’ with its big Per­je­ta/Her­ceptin PhI­II falls flat at AS­CO, but it’s a boost for Puma

CHICA­GO — Roche her­ald­ed a suc­cess for its close­ly-watched com­bi­na­tion breast can­cer study of Per­je­ta and Her­ceptin at AS­CO on Mon­day, but once the da­ta came in­to fo­cus there didn’t seem to be much to cheer about at the phar­ma gi­ant.

The two drugs to­geth­er per­formed bet­ter than Her­ceptin alone in im­prov­ing pa­tients’ odds of pre­vent­ing a re­cur­rence of the dis­ease — by a mar­gin of 0.9%. Af­ter three years of ther­a­py the score was 94.1% sur­vival in the com­bo arm with a 93.2% score for Her­ceptin.

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