AstraZeneca's (AZN.US) breast cancer treatment trial misses expectations, shares dip 1.4% before market open
1min read British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca (AZN.US) announced that its experimental cancer drug, Dato-DXD, developed in collaboration with Daiichi Sankyo, failed to extend patient survival in a key breast cancer treatment trial and showed no significant advantage over chemotherapy. Shares of AstraZeneca fell 1.4% in premarket trading on the news.
The study targeted patients with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-low or negative breast cancer who were not candidates for surgery or had metastatic disease. While Dato-DXD showed positive signs in the early stages of the trial, such as extending the time patients lived without their cancer progressing, the final results did not meet expectations.
AstraZeneca explained that the trial results may have been confounded by the fact that patients in the trial continued to receive other effective treatments after their cancer worsened. The company also noted that, while Dato-DXD only showed partial positive data in a recent lung cancer trial, it remains committed to developing the drug as a treatment option for breast cancer patients.
Dato-DXD is an antibody drug conjugate (ADC) designed to deliver a potent chemotherapy directly to cancer cells, with the goal of killing cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy cells.