AstraZeneca's Tagrisso With Chemotherapy Approved In US To Treat Lung Cancer

(RTTNews) - Drug major, AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L, AZN) said on Monday that its Tagrisso, a brand name of Osimertinib used to treat non-small-cell lung carcinomas with specific mutations, has been approved with the addition of chemotherapy.

Tagrisso with the addition of chemotherapy reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 38 percent compared to Tagrisso monotherapy which is the first-line global standard of care.

The approval allows the company to use the medication to treat adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor-mutated or EGFRm non-small cell lung cancer or NSCLC.

The medication to treat EGFR-mutated advanced lung cancer is based on FLAURA2 results which showed Tagrisso plus chemotherapy extended median progression-free survival by nearly nine months against standard of care.

Median progression-free survival by investigator assessment was 25.5 months for patients treated with Tagrisso plus chemotherapy, an 8.8-month improvement versus Tagrisso monotherapy, 16.7 months.

Tagrisso is approved as monotherapy in over 100 countries including in the U.S., EU, China, and Japan.

Each year, over 200,000 people in the U.S. diagnosed with lung cancer, and 80 percent to 85 percent of these patients suffer from NSCLC.