AstraZeneca shares hit by lung cancer drug setback
AstraZeneca shares fall 8% after disappointing trial results of its new lung cancer drug
Shares of AstraZeneca took a hit after data from a long-awaited clinical trial suggested a lung cancer drug may not work as well as hoped.
The pharmaceutical giant said there had been a number of “grade 5 events” with its trials for datopotamab deruxtecan.
Grade 5 events mean patients died during the clinical trial and this is likely to raise concerns about the drug’s safety.
The news sent AstraZenecas shares down 8 percent, or 902p, to 10,374p.
Setbacks: AstraZeneca said there had been some ‘grade 5 events’ with its trials for lung cancer drug datopotamab deruxtecan
The fact that the company, which is co-developing the drug with Japanese group Daiichi Sankyo, failed to announce that the results were “clinically meaningful” was also a blow to investors, who hope the treatment will be as successful as AstraZeneca’s other cancer drug. Enhertu. .
Some analysts estimate the drug could generate as much as £14.2 billion in sales, with AstraZeneca already agreeing to pay Daiichi Sankyo £4.7 billion for the rights to develop the treatment.
But broker Stifel said that while the adverse side effects could be considered “manageable” by lung cancer specialists, it had expected the company to learn from previous experience to “help and limit such outcomes.”
It added that the lack of “clinically relevant” data, as well as patient deaths during the trial, would raise questions about the drug’s “magnitude of benefit” compared to existing treatments.
Despite this, Susan Galbraith, AstraZeneca’s head of oncology research, said the results provided “convincing evidence” that the drug could play a role in treating lung cancer.
The company plans to continue the trial and collect more data on the overall survival of patients taking the drug before publishing full results.
Datopotamab deruxtecan is an antibody drug conjugate, a method of targeting chemotherapy to make it more effective and reduce its side effects.
Doctors and scientists are trying to move away from the current method of chemotherapy, which exposes the entire body and kills cancer cells as well as healthy cells.
In the trial, AstraZeneca said datopotamab deruxtecan could slow the progression of the disease in patients with advanced lung cancer for longer than the current standard treatment, a chemotherapy drug called docetaxel.