NEVER under-estimate the clinical and commercial value of a chemotherapy backbone to your blockbuster drug – even Tagrisso benefitted from this rocket fuel!
Just last Friday 16th February 2024, the FDA gave yet another blessing to Tagrisso, AstraZeneca’s mega-blockbuster for EGFR-mutant Non-small Cell Lung Cancer. Tagrisso is already a well-known superstar, approved for first-line treatment for metastatic EGFR-mutant NSCLC since 2018. That 2018 FDA approval was based on the FLAURA study and published in NEJM, with a main PFS tag-line of 18.9 months vs 10.2 months in the then standard of care, an improvement of 8.7 months. In an extension of the FLAURA series, the FLAURA2 study compared how NSCLC patients fared when given either Tagrisso with a platinum-based chemotherapy combo or Tagrisso monotherapy. The results are incredible. PFS for Tagrisso with chemo vs Tagrisson monotherapy was 25.5 months vs 16.7 months, an improvement of another 8.8 months.
What this tells us is that even humble platinum-based chemotherapy when used appropriately can seriously improve the performance of oncology precision medicines. Take-home message? Never under-estimate how much the right backing singers can do to your rockstar career.
READ THE ARTICLE – https://www.fda.gov/drugs/resources-information-approved-drugs/fda-approves-osimertinib-chemotherapy-egfr-mutated-non-small-cell-lung-cancer