Article
Novel Drug Bests Tagrisso in Heavily Pretreated Lung Cancer
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More patients with pretreated non-small cell lung cancer saw their disease disappear with abivertinib compared to Tagrisso.
Long-term data consisting of more than three years of follow-up, showed that many patients with heavily pretreated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) saw their cancer shrink — or even disappear in some cases — when given the novel drug abivertinib.
Findings showed that of the 209 patients who responded to abivertinib, the overall response rate (the percentage of patients whose disease decreased as a result of treatment) was 56.5% (118 patients). This included 11 patients (5.3%) who had a complete response, meaning that clinicians could no longer detect cancer in these patients.
Only 0.5% of patients given Tagrisso (osimertinib) experienced a complete response, though the overall response rate for Tagrisso was comparable, according to a company-issued press release.
On average, patients lived for 28.2 months after receiving treatment with abivertinib, a novel EGFR-TKI therapy, compared to 26.8 months for those given Tagrisso.
Abivertinib is different from Tagrisso (another EGFR-TKI drug) because it may be able to overcome resistance to these types of drugs, which occurs in approximately 60% of patients who take EGFR-TKIs, according to data published in Clinical Cancer Research.
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Considering these findings, which are based off a clinical trial conducted in China, the drug’s manufacturer, Sorrento Therapeutics, plans on submitting a new-drug application to the Food and Drug Administration, according to the release.
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