Investors followed upbeat drugs data from pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca (AZN) pushing the stock towards the top of the FTSE 100 leader board on Tuesday (15 February 2022).
Astra reported positive results from Phase III trials of cancer drug Lynparza which showed a reduced risk of disease progression in castration resistant prostate cancer by a third.
The shares rallied more than 3% to £86.69.
Results from the PROpel trial showed Lynparza (sometimes known by its chemical name Olaparib), a joint development with the US’s Merck & Co, showed statistically and clinically meaningful improvement on current first-line standard of care in patients regardless of whether they had gene mutations, when Lynparza was combined with abiraterone, another advanced prostrate cancer treatment.
KILLER DISEASE
‘The results of the PROpel trial, which showed that Olaparib in combination with abiraterone significantly delayed disease progression versus abiraterone by more than eight months, demonstrate the potential for this combination to become a new standard of care option in mCRPC if approved,’ said professor Fred Saab, the principle investigator of the trial.
Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men, causing approximately 375,000 deaths in 2020. Patients with an advanced form of the disease have a poor prognosis with low five-year survival rates.
Lynparza is a non-chemical oral medication that is approved to treat patients with advanced Ovarian, metastatic Brest and Pancreatic cancers in addition to prostate cancer.
The drug generated sales of $2.75 billion last year for AstraZeneca after showing 21% year-on-year growth.
