AstraZeneca Resumes Enrolment for Cancer Drug Trial -- Update
November 22 2016 - 3:33AM
Dow Jones News
By Denise Roland
AstraZeneca PLC said it had resumed recruiting patients into two
large clinical trials on head and neck cancer that had been paused
due to concerns over bleeding.
The Cambridge, U.K.-based company last month suspended
recruitment into the trials in order to investigate whether the
bleeding had been caused by its drugs. Patients already involved in
the trial had continued to participate.
It said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had said the
company can continue both trials without altering their design.
Bleeding is a known complication while treating head and neck
cancer due to the nature of the disease, AstraZeneca said. Prior
therapies such as surgery and radiation can also cause bleeding, it
said.
The trials in question are testing whether a drug called
durvalumab, used alone or in combination with another of Astra's
experimental cancer medicines known as tremelimumab, prolongs
survival in patients with head and neck cancer.
Astra is also testing these drugs in lung and bladder cancer,
and those trials have continued as normal.
Durvalumab and tremelimumab are central to AstraZeneca's goal of
increasing revenue to $45 billion by 2023, nearly double the $25
billion it generated in 2015. That target was unveiled by Chief
Executive Pascal Soriot to ward off an unwelcome, and ultimately
failed, takeover bid by Pfizer Inc. Astra expects durvalumab alone
to generate $6.5 billion in annual revenue at its peak, if approved
as a treatment for several tumor types.
Write to Denise Roland at denise.roland@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 22, 2016 03:18 ET (08:18 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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