Sept 8 (Reuters) – Amgen’s targeted immunotherapy, Imdelltra, combined with AstraZeneca’s cancer drug Imfinzi, significantly improved overall survival in patients with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer in a late-stage trial, the companies said on Tuesday.
Here are some details:
• The trial tested the combination as a maintenance treatment against Imfinzi alone in patients whose disease had not progressed after standard induction therapy.
• In addition to overall survival, the drug combination also improved progression-free survival and response rate. No new safety concerns were identified.
• Amgen’s Imdelltra received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s accelerated approval in 2024 and traditional approval in 2025 for extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer.
• Last year, the drug brought in $513 million in sales for Amgen. Cancer therapies account for about 23% of Amgen’s total sales.
• Imdelltra is part of Amgen’s pipeline of bispecific antibodies designed to attach to a cancer cell and an immune cell, bringing them together so that the body’s immune system can kill the cancer.
• Imfinzi, already approved for several cancers, is a human monoclonal antibody that blocks tumour mechanisms that help cancers evade and suppress the immune system, while enhancing the body’s anticancer immune response.
• Investor confidence in AstraZeneca has been dented by a series of setbacks in recent months, including the surprise failure of nerve disease drug Wainua in a late-stage heart disease trial in July and, most recently, the discontinuation of its trial of lung cancer drug volrustomig in August.
(Reporting by Raechel Thankam Job and Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo, Sahal Muhammed and Tasim Zahid)
