Johnson & Johnson $JNJ (-2,68%) said Tuesday that its chemotherapy-free combination treatment has shown significant improvement in extending the lives of patients with a type of lung cancer compared to AstraZeneca's blockbuster drug Tagrisso.
The combination of J&J's cancer drugs Rybrevant and lazertinib, which was approved in August for previously untreated patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with an EGFR mutation, showed a statistically significant improvement in median overall survival, meeting an important secondary objective of a late-stage trial.
However, the company did not provide specific details on the life extension compared to AstraZeneca's Tagrisso, which extended the lives of such NSCLC patients by an average of 38.6 months in a separate study.
J&J said it will announce the details of the Tagrisso portion of its study at an upcoming medical meeting and also plans to share full overall survival data with health authorities.
"We expect an improvement in median overall survival of more than one year," said Mark Wildgust, who heads global medical affairs for oncology at J&J.
"We will increase median overall survival to over four years," he added.
Some analysts have previously pointed out that doctors may prefer single-agent therapy to combination therapy for previously untreated patients, but better survival could tip the scales in their favor.
"Physicians are always looking for the best option up front, and when they define what the best option is, they look at the overall survival rate they give their patients," said Biljana Naumovic, who leads commercial strategy for cancer treatments at J&J.
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common form of lung cancer, and the EGFR mutation occurs in 10-15% of cases in the United States, according to the American Lung Association.