San Antonio breast cancer meeting highlights

There was mixed news coming out of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), which concluded on December 8, with good and bad news from Genzyme and Pfizer (see Pharma Letter December 7), but disappointing findings for others.

Genentech, part of Swiss drug major Roche (ROG: SIX), announced updated survival results from the Phase III CLEOPATRA study, which showed that the combination of Perjeta (pertuzumab), Herceptin (trastuzumab) and docetaxel chemotherapy significantly extended the lives (overall survival) of people with previously untreated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer (mBC), compared to Herceptin, chemotherapy and placebo.

Results showed that the risk of death was reduced by 34% for people who received Perjeta, Herceptin and chemotherapy, compared to those given Herceptin and chemotherapy (HR=0.66; p=0.0008). At the time of the analysis, median overall survival had not yet been reached in people receiving the Perjeta combination, as more than half of these people continued to survive. Median overall survival was more than three years (37.6 months) for people who received Herceptin and chemotherapy. Based on these data, people receiving Herceptin and chemotherapy in CLEOPATRA have been offered the option to receive Perjeta. No new safety signals were observed in the study.