AstraZeneca PLC on Friday said that its most recent trial testing Imfinzi showed that the therapy significantly improved progression-free survival in advanced endometrial cancer when added to chemotherapy.

According to the Cambridge, England-based pharmaceutical maker, Imfinzi in combination with platinum-based chemotherapy followed by either Imfinzi plus Lynparza, or Imfinzi alone as maintenance therapy, both demonstrated a ‘statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement’ when compared to standard-of-care chemotherapy.

These results were drawn from the DUO-E Phase III trial, which randomised 699 patients with newly diagnosed or recurrent stage three or four epithelial endometrial carcinoma - excluding sarcomas - to receive either 1,120 milligrams of Imfinzi or placebo.

Imfinzi, generically durvalumab, is a human monoclonal antibody that binds to the PD-L1 protein and blocks the interaction of PD-L1 with the PD-1 and CD80 proteins, while Lynparza, generically olaparib, is a targeted treatment designed to block DNA damage response in cells or tumours that harbour a deficiency in homologous recombination-related genes.

While overall survival data was immature at the time of analysis, AstraZeneca said that it had seen a favourable trend for both treatment regimens. It added that the combination of Imfinzi and Lynparza was shown to be superior as a maintenance treatment.

‘These DUO-E data demonstrate for the first time the power of combining immunotherapy and a PARP inhibitor to provide meaningful clinical improvements for patients with endometrial cancer. These results underscore our ambition to redefine cancer care and we hope to bring this innovative Imfinzi and Lynparza combination to endometrial cancer patients as soon as possible,’ said Susan Galbraith, executive vice president of oncology research and development.

AstraZeneca shares were trading 0.9% higher at 11,746.00 pence each in London on Friday morning.

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