UK pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca (NASDAQ: AZN, LON: AZN) has achieved a significant milestone with its drug combination of Imfinzi (durvalumab) and Imjudo (tremelimumab), used in the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Data from the Phase III HIMALAYA trial, showcased at the 2024 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress, revealed that one-in-five patients were still alive five years after treatment, marking the longest survival follow-up ever reported for a Phase III immunotherapy in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
The HIMALAYA study compared the STRIDE regimen, which combines a single priming dose of Imjudo with Imfinzi, to sorafenib, the standard of care. The results demonstrated a 24% reduction in the risk of death with the STRIDE regimen, with an estimated 19.6% of patients still alive at the five-year mark, compared to 9.4% with sorafenib. This survival rate is a significant improvement over historical rates, which typically see only about 7% of patients surviving five years with advanced liver cancer.
The Imfinzi-Imjudo combination is already approved in the US, EU, Japan, and several other countries for the treatment of advanced or unresectable HCC, and AstraZeneca has submitted approval filings in Israel for first- and second-line treatments for both squamous and non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), with further filings planned for gastric cancer and first-line ESCC. – Flcube.com
