ROCHE y BMS: La "bomba" en ASCO 2012...

Roche’s new ‘smart bomb’ breast cancer drug T-DM1 has impressed at this year’s ASCO conference in Chicago.

The trial showed it significantly delayed disease progression in metastatic HER2 positive breast cancer and produced fewer side effects.

The Phase III EMILIA study showed of trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) reduced the risk of disease worsening or death was reduced by 35% compared to GSK’s Tyverb (lapatinib) plus Roche’s Xeloda (capecitabine).

T-DM1 combines Herceptin and chemotherapy in one molecule, which allows the chemo to be targeted only at cancer cells. This makes the treatment more effective and spares patients the side-effects of traditional chemotherapy, where healthy cells are also killed.

Roche plans to submit the drug in HER2-positive mBC this year to the EMA and the FDA.

The drug could make more than $1.1 billion in peak annual sales, according to analysts. Herceptin currently earns over $6 billion a year, but will go off from 2015.

The EMILIA study is the first randomised Phase III trial of trastuzumab emtansine in patients with HER2-positive mBC who had previously received Herceptin (trastuzumab) and taxane chemotherapy.

Patients who received T-DM1 also had an increase in overall survival - the other co-primary endpoint of the study - compared to those who received Tyverb plus Xeloda.

But Roche said these data were not yet mature, and would release them at a later date. (Más)

The early success of an experimental drug from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. that’s designed to unleash the body’s immune-system defenses against cancer sets the stage for an industry wide race to produce similar treatments.

The drug shrank tumors in people with advanced lung, kidney and skin cancer in 18 percent to 28 percent of patients, depending on the illness, who had failed on other therapies, according to data from a 296-patient trial reported June 2 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago.

The findings hint that therapies like the Bristol drug, that prompt killer T-cells to eliminate invaders, may work against many tumors, said James Allison, an immunologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

“There is no reason to think that all cancers might not be susceptible to immune therapy,” Allison said by telephone, noting that the human immune system can wipe out whole organs when it rejects a transplant.

Drugmakers and scientists have been trying to find ways to boost the immune system against cancer for decades, with little successes until recently. (Más)