Pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca (AZN), already the most valuable stock in the UK market, gave shareholders yet more reasons to be cheerful on Monday with positive updates on two of its drugs and news of a further collaboration in cancer treatment. The shares rose 30p or 0.35% to £86.82 against a weaker market.
MORE SUCCESS
First, its Imfinzi drug has been recommended for marketing in the EU for first-line treatment of adults with extensive small cell lung cancer in combination with chemotherapy.
Phase III trials for Imfinzi plus chemotherapy showed that the drug had ‘a statistically significant and clinically meaningful overall survival benefit for the first-line treatment of patients,’ reducing the risk of death by 27% versus chemotherapy alone. An updated analysis showed sustained results for Imfinzi plus chemotherapy after a median follow-up of more than two years.
The news follows the recommendation in June of the firm’s Lynparza drug for first-line treatment of patients with pancreatic cancer.
The second piece of good news on drug approval was that the EU has recommended Calquence for marketing in the treatment of adults with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the most common form of leukemia in adults.
In Phase III trials Calquence reduced the risk of disease progression by 80% and the risk of death by 90% compared to standard chemo-immunotherapy treatment.
GLOBAL EXPANSION
Meanwhile the firm announced it had signed a new global development and marketing deal with Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo for its DS-1062 cancer treatment.
DS-1062 is currently in development for use against non-small cell lung cancers and breast cancers, areas which AstraZeneca says ‘have long been a strategic focus.’
AstraZeneca will pay three lots of $325 million to Daiichi Sankyo in the first two years of their collaboration, followed by $1 billion if the drug gets full regulatory approval and up to $4 billion in sales-related milestones.
This is the second multi-billion dollar drug deal between the two firms after AstraZeneca signed an agreement worth nearly $7 billion for Daiichi Sankyo’s Enhertu breast cancer treatment last year.
Chief executive Pascal Soriot said: ‘We see significant potential in this antibody drug conjugate in lung as well as in breast and other cancers. We now have six potential blockbusters in Oncology with more to come in our early and late pipelines.’
