AstraZeneca reports ‘remarkable’ results from breast cancer study

AstraZeneca recently announced that its breast cancer drug, Enhertu, significantly reduced the risk of death or disease progression in women with metastatic breast cancer.

Enhertu is currently used as a third-line treatment in women with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer — and is only used after two previous forms of treatment have failed to stop the progression of the disease. 

the trial pitted Enhertu against Roche Holding AG’s Kadcyla, which is the current standard treatment. According to an initial analysis of a new study, for women with metastatic breast cancer, an advanced form of the disease where tumors have spread to other parts of the body, Enhertu has been found to reduce the risk of death or tumor progression by 72%. What’s more, in the phase 3 study called DESTINY-Breast03, 75.8% of 500 women treated with Enhertu also had no disease progression one year into treatment. Of the women treated with Kadcyla, 34.1% had no disease progression one year on.

One of the trial’s lead investigators called the results “remarkable.” 

With the trial results in hand, AstraZeneca could look to push Enhertu as the new standard of care for certain breast cancer patients.