Roche’s Tecentriq scores a first-in-class double win in new liver cancer patients

October 24, 2019 Gubba Pharma In E News

Roche is out with phase 3 Tecentriq results in liver cancer, and it’s out in full force.
The immuno-oncology med, in combination with fellow Roche drug Avastin, not only showed it could beat Bayer’s standard-of-care Nexavar at stalling cancer progression in previously untreated patients. It helped them live longer, too.
Details from the study, called Imbrave150, are still under wraps, with Roche planning to unveil them at an upcoming medical meeting. But in the meantime, the company will be submitting the data to regulators around the world, including those in the U.S., Europe and China, it said.
Those data back up phase 1b results that already scored the pairing a breakthrough designation from the FDA. That data, presented at last year’s ASCO meeting, showed the Tecentriq and Avastin duo provoked a response in 65% of study patients.
The double win is a big one for Tecentriq, which has run up against competition from other PD-1/PD-L1 drugs—including Merck & Co.’s Keytruda—in some of its other big indications.
This time, Tecentriq is the first drug in its class to deliver phase 3 data showing it can both keep cancer at bay and lengthen lives—and that second piece could prove to be a key advantage. Doctors and payers consider overall survival the gold standard for cancer drugs and while regulators will sometimes grant conditional green lights without it, they’ll look for life-lengthening results to back up those decisions.
Meanwhile, Tecentriq’s in-class nemeses have stumbled in the liver cancer arena recently. Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo, already approved in later lines of therapy, failed in June to show it could best Nexavar at extending lives, frustrating its attempts to move earlier into treatment.
Plus, earlier in the year, Keytruda failed to top placebo on either the progression-free survival or overall survival fronts, jeopardizing an accelerated approval in previously untreated patients that it earned based on phase 2 data.
That’s not to say the Tecentriq-Avastin pairing won’t face big competition if it can get to the front-line setting, though. Bayer’s Nexavar has been the go-to drug for years, and since picking up a second-line approval for Stivarga, the German drugmaker has billed the pair as a two-phase regimen. And Merck and Eisai’s Lenvima nabbed its own approval last summer after showing it could outdo Bayer’s old standby, if only slightly.

Source : fiercepharma

About the author

Gubba Group:


Plot no-118-A, Five Star Industrial Area, MIDC, Shendra, Aurangabad.


Survey No.271,Muppireddypalli (Village),Toopran Mandal, Medak District, Hyderabad,Telangana


Survey No.255, Kandlakoya Village, Medchal R R Dist, Hyderabad,Telangana


Plot No. 101 & 103 IDA Medchal R R District, Hyderabad,Telangana


Plot No. 101 & 103 IDA Medchal R R District, Hyderabad,Telangana

Survey No. 46, Mediciti Hospital, Rajbollaram (village),Medchal R R Dist, Hyderabad,Telangana

Survey No.741 Lalgadi Malakpet VillageShameerpet Mandal, R R Dist, Hyderabad,Telangana

Plot : C-8/2a, Industrial Area, Uppal, Hyderabad,Telangana

Plot No.1, Survey No.85/A, Yellampet, Medchal R R Dist, Hyderabad,Telangana

Plot No.2 Survey No.85/A, Yellampet, Medchal R R Dist, Hyderabad,Telangana

Survey No.150&151, Athavelli village, Medchal R R Dist, Hyderabad,Telangana

Survey No.150&151, Athavelli village, Medchal R R Dist, Hyderabad,Telangana

Survey No : 84 C & G, Yellampet Village, Medchal Mandal, R.R Dist, Hyderabad,Telangana


MCJR+C4 Nutankal, Telangana


Banda Mailaram, Telangana 502336


Plot : C-8/2a, Industrial Area, Uppal, Hyderabad,Telangana


Aanaram, Telangana 500043


Kothur Village, Telangana 502279


Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh 530012


Surat, Gujarat 396430


Gundlapochampally, Telangana 500014


MEDCHAL, NEAR ELECTRICAL OFFICE, 501401 R R DIST. Hyderabad


Hyderabad, Telangana 501401


Siddipet, Telangana 502279


Medchal Mandal, Hyderabad, Telangana 501401


Nizamabad, Telangana 503230


IDA, Medchal, 501401