Niels Wenstedt | Getty Images
Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday said his lung cancer treatment regimen kept people alive at least a year longer than AstraZeneca‘s Tagrisso, a major drug for a certain type of lung cancer.
J&J said in a statement that its drugs – Rybrevant and Lazcluze – showed a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in survival over Tagrisso in the pivotal trial. The company expects the benefit to last at least a year and possibly longer, J&J executives said in an interview. The company plans to present the full results at a medical meeting later this year.
“This is an absolute driver,” said Biljana Naumovic, president of US Oncology Solid Tumor at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine. “People were looking for an overall difference in survival.”
J&J is trying to replace AstraZeneca’s hit Tagrisso, a once-daily pill that has transformed the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer with EGFR mutations and extended median survival to about three years. These genetic errors cause cancer cells to proliferate. They are responsible for between 10% and 15% of lung cancer cases in the US, according to American Lung Association.
J&J executives hailed the result as a milestone that should change the treatment of this type of lung cancer. But there is no guarantee that doctors and patients will all switch to using Rybrevant and Lazcluze since the regimen comes with more side effects and requires infusions every few weeks, said Dr. Stephen Liu, director of thoracic oncology and head of developmental therapy at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive. Cancer Center.
“I think the announcement that this will lead to longer lives will make people take a harder look,” Liu said.
He wants to see who benefited the most so he can treat those patients more aggressively and spare those who are less likely to respond. Rybrevant and Lazcluze may cause a rash and nail cracking.
Like Tagrisso, J&J’s regimen blocks the EGFR protein to prevent cancer cells from growing. It also targets MET, a common pathway used by cancer to develop drug resistance.
J&J predicts that annual sales of Rybrevant and Lazcluze could exceed $5 billion. Tagrisso brought about $6 billion to AstraZeneca in 2023.
