Tagrisso demonstrates superiority over chemo in NSCLC

New study results presented at the 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Vienna, Austria, hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and published simultaneously online in The New England Journal of Medicine, showed that Tagrisso (osimertinib), reduced the risk of lung cancer progression by 70% compared to chemotherapy and improved progression-free survival by almost six months.

Anglo-Swedish pharma major AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) today presented data from the AURA3 trial that is supportive of Tagrisso potentially becoming the new standard of care for 2nd-line treatment of patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) T790M mutation-positive locally-advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The first randomized Phase III data showed that Tagrisso 2nd-line therapy improved progression-free survival (PFS) by 5.7 months compared with standard platinum-based doublet chemotherapy (Hazard Ratio [HR]=0.3).