ASCO 2019: Lynparza nearly doubled progression-free survival in pancreatic cancer

Much awaited Phase III POLO trial data were presented at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago, and showed that Lynparza (olaparib) has a significant impact of progression of disease in certain pancreatic cancer patients.

Announced by Anglo-Swedish major AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) and partner US pharma giant  Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK), the POLO trial tested Lynparza  tablets as first-line maintenance monotherapy for patients with germline BRCA-mutated (gBRCAm) metastatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas (pancreatic cancer) whose disease had not progressed following standard-of-care platinum-based first-line chemotherapy.

Results from the trial showed a statistically-significant and clinically-meaningful improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) for Lynparza versus placebo, improving the time without disease progression by a median of 7.4 months for patients treated with Lynparzavs 3.8 months for those on placebo (HR 0.53 [95% CI, 0.35-0.82], p=0.004). More than twice as many patients showed no disease progression both at one year (34% on Lynparzavs 15% on placebo) and two years (22% vs 10%, respectively).