New data on Lutathera presented at ESMO show significant PFS

A new analysis of Lutathera (lutetium Lu 177 dotatate) NETTER-1 data has been presented at the 2018 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) congress, which kicked off in Munich, Germany today, which examines the impact of Lutathera treatment on patients with low, medium or high liver tumor burden.

The data show that Lutathera treatment results in significant improvement in progression free survival (PFS) regardless of the extent of baseline liver tumor burden (LTB), elevated alkaline phosphatase (ALP) liver enzyme or presence of large (>30mm diameter) lesion in patients with progressive midgut neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) compared to octreotide LAR alone.

Lutathera was developed by Advanced Accelerator Applications, which Swiss pharma giant Novartis (NOVN: VX) acquired late October last year in a $3.9 billion deal. The drug was approved b y the European Commission in October 2017, and by the US Food and Drug Administration in January this year for the treatment of a type of cancer that affects the pancreas or gastrointestinal tract called gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs), the likes of which killed Apple's founder Steve Jobs in 2011.