Dive Brief:
- In a clinical trial of patients with previously treated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), treatment with Roche/Genentech's MPDL3280A, a PD-L1 inhibitor, reduced the risk of death by 53% in patients with the highest level of biomarkers.
- Higher levels of PD-L1 correlate with a higher level of responsiveness.
- Overall, MPDL3280A was well tolerated.
Dive Insight:
MPDL3280A has been granted breakthrough therapy status by the FDA, and is also being tested for various types of cancer beyond just NSCLC. Overall, this drug looks promising—although the clinical trial being highlighted in Abstract 8010 is small, with just 287 patients.
Overall survival was 11.4 months for MPDL3280A versus 9.5 months for docetaxel. Roche is hard at work navigating MPDL3280A through the final stages of development, with six phase III trials focused on lung cancer.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting will be held in Chicago from May 29 to June 2. BioPharma Dive will be attending and have you covered for all the news out of the conference.