AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso gets BTD for certain lung cancer

AstraZeneca Monday said that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) for Tagrisso (osimertinib) for the 1st-line treatment of patients with metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Sean Bohen, Executive Vice President, Global Medicines Development and Chief Medical Officer at AstraZeneca, said: “The Breakthrough Therapy Designation acknowledges not only Tagrisso’s potential as a 1st-line standard of care in advanced EGFR mutation-positive NSCLC, but also the significant need for improved clinical outcomes in this disease. The results of the FLAURA trial have the potential to redefine clinical expectations and offer new hope for patients who currently have a poor prognosis.”

AZ noted that the FDA granted the BTD based on data from the Phase III FLAURA trial of Tagrisso versus standard-of-care EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy in previously-untreated patients with locally-advanced or metastatic EGFR mutation-positive NSCLC.

The use of Tagrisso for the 1st-line treatment of patients with locally-advanced or metastatic EGFR mutation-positive NSCLC is not yet FDA approved. However, Tagrisso is currently approved in more than 50 countries, including the US, EU, Japan and China, as 2nd-line treatment for patients with advanced NSCLC who progress following treatment with an EGFR TKI due to the EGFR T790M resistance mutation, the company said.

That is a third-generation, irreversible epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) with clinical activity against central nervous system (CNS) metastases, for the 1st-line treatment of adult patients with locally-advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumours have EGFR mutations (exon 19 deletions or exon 21 (L858R) substitution mutations).

Also, this is the sixth BTD that AstraZeneca has received from the FDA for an oncology medicine since 2014.