J&J says lung cancer drugs Rybrevant and Lazcluze increase survival

Johnson and Johnson on Tuesday said his lung cancer treatment regimen allows people to live at least a year longer than AstraZeneca‘s Tagrisso, a drug to treat a certain type of lung cancer.

J&J said in a statement that its drugs – Rybrevant and Lazcluze – showed a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in survival compared to Tagrisso in the main trial. The company expects the benefit to last at least a year and possibly longer, J&J executives said in an interview. The company plans to present the full results at a medical meeting later this year.

“It’s an absolute passion,” said Biljana Navumovic, president of Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine’s U.S. solid tumor oncology division. “People were looking for an overall difference in survival.”

J&J is trying to dislodge AstraZeneca’s blockbuster Tagrisso, a once-daily pill that has transformed the treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer with EGFR mutations and extended median survival to about three years. These genetic errors cause cancer cells to multiply. They are responsible for 10% to 15% of lung cancer cases in the US, according to data American Lung Association.

J&J executives hailed the result as a breakthrough that should change the treatment of this type of lung cancer. But there’s no guarantee that doctors and patients will switch to Rybrevant and Lazcluze because the regimen has more side effects and requires infusions every few weeks, said Dr. Stephen Liu, director of thoracic oncology and head of developmental therapies at Georgetown University’s Lombardi. Oncology center.

“I think the announcement that this is leading to people living longer is going to get people to look at it more seriously,” Liu said.

He wants to see who benefited the most so he can treat those patients more aggressively, sparing those less likely to respond. Rybrevant and Lazcluze can cause a rash and splitting of the nails in people.

Like Tagrisso, the J&J regimen blocks the EGFR protein to prevent cancer cells from growing. It also targets MET, a common pathway that cancer uses to develop drug resistance.

J&J predicts annual sales of Rybrevant and Lazcluze could top $5 billion. Tagrisa brought AstraZeneca about $6 billion in 2023.