ASCO 2012: "Show me the overall survival data," say analysts

The annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting, held this year in Chicago from June 1-5, consistently features heavily hyped presentations on the next great cancer drug, comment analysts at business intelligence provider GlobalData.

Data presented on one of this year’s superstars, Roche (ROG: SIX)/Genentech and ImmunoGen’s T-DM1 (trastuzumab-emtansine), was certainly promising (The Pharma Letter June 4). T-DM1, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) consisting of Roche/Genentech’s blockbuster therapeutic antibody Herceptin (trastuzumab) linked to Immunogen’s potent tumor-killer DM1 using the company’s Targeted Antibody Payload technology, is the darling of investors and analysts everywhere.

In a plenary session on June 3, Genentech presented the final progression-free survival (PFS) analysis of the Phase III EMILIA trial, which demonstrated the median PFS of the 495 refractory HER2+ metastatic breast cancer patients treated with T-DM1 was significantly longer than that of the 496 patients treated with Tykerb (lapatinib) plus Xeloda (capecitabine). T-DM1 patients achieved PFS of 9.6 months, compared to 6.4 months for the control group. T-DM1 also showed a favorable safety profile compared to Tykerb plus Xeloda, a characteristic that will surely score points with regulatory agencies and oncologists.