AstraZeneca said that an experimental cancer drug was able to shrink tumors by 51 percent in the study's first stages.
AstraZeneca dubbed its new drug called MEDI4736 as the "new great white hope" in the battle against cancer and Pfizer's planned takeover worth £63 billion.
"We think our oncology pipeline is incredibly strong and can compete with Novartis and Roche in its own right," vice president of innovative medicines Mene Pangalos of AstraZeneca said. "It can stand on its own two feet."
Roche's drugs erlotinib or Tarceva are treatments for different kinds of solid tumor cancers with overactive or mutated EGFR. About 15 percent of people with non-small cell cancer of the lungs have EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) gene mutations.
The drug AZD9291 shrank tumors in 51 percent of the patients and 64 percent of those who have the T790M mutation which develops in around 50 percent of cancer in the lungs and have become resistant to therapies known as EGFR inhibitors. However, most drugs eventually develop resistance to EGFR inhibitors. Drug resistance has long been the bane of chemotherapy. Studies that provide a better understanding of cancer's molecular underpinnings are now developing drugs that focus on new mutations.
Trials are still in its early stages but the study suggests that the new drug may offer a new effective therapy option without the adverse effects found on similar treatments for cancer patients. AstraZeneca may combine the drug with MEDI4736 because of its "strong scientific rationale." The company is in its final trial stage for MEDI4736 to see if patients with a type of inoperable cancer of the lungs would improve survival when the drug is used after radiation and chemotherapy. It is an antibody that inhibits a protein called PD-L1 which keeps several cancers from being identified and attacked by the immune system.
"AstraZeneca's recent series of data releases highlights what we continue to believe is one of the best mid- to late-stage pipelines within all of biopharma," wrote Seamus Fernandez, an analyst of Leerink Partners LLC.
Head of oncology and lead analyst Colin White of Datamonitor Healthcare also said that MEDI4736 has "a tremendous amount of commercial potential".
