AstraZeneca cancer drug gets FDA green light

AstraZeneca cancer drug gets FDA green light

New treatment could bring in more than $1 billion.

Drug maker AstraZeneca has been making news, with a major recent acquisition and by fending off a takeover bid. Now the company is making more news that may be a valuable treatment for some cancer patients.

The British pharmaceutical company announced last week it has received final approval from the Food and Drug Administration for a new drug intended to treat lung cancer, according to Reuters. The pill is among several that the company hopes will boost sales as it begins losing patent protections on many of its older treatments.

The drug is called Tagrisso, and is also known as AZD9291. When the top U.S. drug maker Pfizer was pursuing a takeover of Astra Zeneca last year, the British company said that Tagrisso could ultimately bring in as much as $3 billion in revenue, although industry analysts put the figure at closer to $1.1 billion.

Analysts had expected FDA approval in 2016, but the agency acted earlier, allowing the pill which is prescribed for use once a day to be given to certain patients who have advanced non-small cell lung cancer. Astra Zeneca has also recently launched an ovarian cancer drug called Lynparza, and hopes to bring six cancer drugs to market by 2020.

Astra Zeneca said the pill would be available to patients in the U.S. as soon as possible, and would be priced competitively. Tagrisso is similar to a treatment in development by a competing firm, Clovis Oncology, as it targets a specific genetic mutation known as T790M, that helps tumors evade current lung cancer pill.

Patients in two clinical efficacy trials with Tagrisso, 57 and 61 percent of patients experienced full or partial reduction in tumor size. The most common side effects included diarrhea and skin and fingernail problems.

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