BRIEF—Another approval in China for Lynparza

Marketed by AstraZeneca and Merck & Co, cancer drug Lynparza (olaparib) has now been approved in China for an additional indication.

Lynparza is cleared as a maintenance treatment of adult patients with advanced epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal cancer who are in complete or partial response to 1st-line platinum-based chemotherapy in combination with bevacizumab, and whose cancer is associated with homologous recombination deficiency (HRD)-positive status.

In China, ovarian cancer is the third most common gynecologic cancer, with a five-year survival rate of around 39%, largely because more than 70% of women are diagnosed with advanced disease (Stage III or IV). In 2020, there were over 55,000 new cases of ovarian cancer in China.

Lynparza has steadily increased its impact since 2014, scoring global sales of $2.7 billion for AstraZeneca in 2021, a 23% increase. Merck booked net revenues of nearly a billion dollars for the same period.

In China, Lynparza is approved for the treatment of BRCA-mutated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer as well as a first-line maintenance therapy BRCA-mutated advanced ovarian cancers.