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 Adding the company's experimental drug tremelimumab to its existing
product Imfinzi failed to slow disease progression or extend life in
patients who had already received at least two previous treatments,
the drugmaker said on Tuesday.
Shares in AstraZeneca fell 1 percent following the news.
The result of the study, known as ARCTIC, is disappointing but not a
huge surprise, since evidence has been building that there may be
little value in using a so-called CTLA-4 drug like tremelimumab on
top of a PD-L1 such as Imfinzi.
Indeed, since Imfinzi on its own showed some signs of efficacy,
whereas adding tremelimumab did not, analysts believe the second
drug might actually offset the efficacy that Imfinzi can offer.
An ARCTIC sub-study that was not powered for statistical
significance found that Imfinzi monotherapy showed a clinically
meaningful reduction in the risk of death compared to chemotherapy.
A year ago, the notion of combining the two medicines was the big
hope driving AstraZeneca's stock price - but that hope was dealt a
major blow in July when its main first-line lung cancer trial,
called MYSTIC, failed to slow disease progression.
It is still possible the two-drug combination might succeed in
lengthening first-line patients' lives - a measure called overall
survival - but Deutsche Bank analyst Richard Parkes said
expectations for this "should now be very low".
AstraZeneca is due to report overall survival data from the MYSTIC
trial in the second half of this year.
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LUNG CANCER BATTLEGROUND
Lung cancer is the world's most common and deadly form of the
disease, spurring a battle among companies including AstraZeneca,
Merck & Co, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Roche to develop immune
system-boosting treatments.
The latest findings from a number of studies presented at a medical
meeting in Chicago this month suggests that adding chemotherapy to
immunotherapy, rather than giving two immunotherapies together, is
the most promising approach - a development that is benefiting
Merck.
Luckily, AstraZeneca is finding success elsewhere and the relative
importance of double immunotherapy within its portfolio has reduced
as the company prepares for a return to sales growth over the next
few years.
Within lung cancer, Imfinzi on its own is also carving out a
distinct market in treating patients with inoperable mid-stage
disease that has not spread widely around the body.
AstraZeneca has suffered the industry's biggest patent cliff since
2012, wiping out more than half of its sales, but it expects sales
to grow this year, helped by a number of new medicines.
Separately on Tuesday, AstraZeneca said it would subscribe for more
shares in Circassia by injecting cash into the respiratory drug
specialist to take its stake to a maximum of 19.9 percent from 14.2
percent. Shares in Circassia rose 4 percent on the news.
(Reporting by Ben Hirschler, editing by Louise Heavens)
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