The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Johnson & Johnson’s chemotherapy-free combination treatment for a type of non-small cell lung cancer, setting up a challenge for AstraZeneca’s blockbuster drug Tagrisso.
The approval allows the use of the J&J drug – Rybrevant – in combination with the company’s existing drug, lazertinib, as a first-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with a mutated form of a gene called EGFR.
Reuters reports that NSCLC is the most common type of lung cancer, and the EGFR mutation occurs in 10%-15% of the cases in the United States, according to data from the American Lung Association.
Rybrevant disrupts growth of EGFR and another gene called MET to slow down or stop the spread of tumorous cells, and lazertinib inhibits their rapid reproduction.
“We are the first chemo-free therapy that beat the standard of care in the frontline setting,” said Biljana Naumovic, who oversees the commercial strategy for J&J’s oncology treatments.
The FDA’s decision on J&J’s therapy is based on data from a late-stage study, in which the Rybrevant combination increased the time patients lived without their disease worsening, compared with Tagrisso.
Rybrevant is already approved for the treatment of NSCLC as a monotherapy, in patients whose disease has progressed after chemotherapy, and in combination with chemotherapy for patients with the EGFR mutation in the US.
Reuters article – J&J’s chemotherapy-free treatment for lung cancer gets US approval (Open access)
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