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 Zejula, which belongs to a promising class of medicines and is a
marketed product for ovarian cancer, came to GSK when it bought U.S.
cancer specialist Tesaro for $5.1 billion in December.
The drugmaker said the study met its primary endpoint of a
statistically significant improvement in progression free survival
for women regardless of their biomarker status.
About 22,000 women are diagnosed each year with ovarian cancer in
the United States and more than 65,000 in Europe. It is seen as the
fifth most frequent cause of cancer death among women.
Despite high response rates to platinum-based chemotherapy in the
second-line advanced treatment, about 85% of patients will
experience recurrence within two years, GSK said.
"These exciting data demonstrate that Zejula has the potential to
significantly benefit even more women with this devastating cancer,"
Hal Barron, chief scientific officer and president, R&D, GSK, said
in a statement.
Zejula has lagged behind AstraZeneca and Merck & Co's rival PARP
drug Lynparza, which sells nearly three times more, while Clovis
Oncology also has a competitor called Rubraca.
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PARP inhibitors work by blocking enzymes involved in repairing
damaged DNA, thereby helping to kill cancer cells, and they are a
growing focus for drug research, with potential for use in breast,
lung and prostate cancers.
For GSK, making Zejula work in wider population groups is critical
in justifying the high price it paid for Tesaro.
GSK also bolstered its cancer drug development pipeline earlier this
year, agreeing to pay up to 3.7 billion euros ($4.17 billion) to
Germany's Merck KGaA for the rights to a next-generation
immunotherapy.
Niraparib is marketed in the United States and Europe under the
trade name Zejula.
(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun
Koyyur)
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