AstraZeneca's latest lung cancer trial fails its primary endpoint

AstraZeneca announced on Tuesday that its ‘PACIFIC-2’ phase three trial for Imfinzi, or durvalumab, concurrently administered with chemoradiotherapy (CRT), did not achieve its primary endpoint of progression-free survival compared to CRT alone.

The FTSE 100 pharmaceuticals giant said the trial aimed to address the treatment of patients with unresectable stage three non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who either progressed or discontinued treatment during CRT, rendering them ineligible for the established ‘PACIFIC’ regimen, where Imfinzi is sequentially administered after platinum-based CRT.

Initial analysis of safety and tolerability for the concurrent administration of Imfinzi and CRT in the patient population revealed profiles broadly consistent with each treatment’s known profiles.

However, it noted an increased infection rate was observed during the concurrent treatment period in the experimental arm of the trial.

Despite the outcome of the PACIFIC-2 trial, AstraZeneca said it was still advancing lung cancer treatment.

The company was conducting several ongoing registrational trials focusing on testing Imfinzi in various stages of lung cancer, including assessing Imfinzi in resectable NSCLC, medically inoperable or unresected stage one and two NSCLC, unresectable stage three NSCLC, and limited-stage small-cell lung cancer (SCLC).

“Our goal with the PACIFIC-2 trial was to address a remaining unmet need for patients in this setting by introducing immunotherapy even earlier and concurrently administering Imfinzi with chemoradiotherapy,” said the company’s executive vice-president of oncology research and development, Susan Galbraith.

“While today’s results did not reach statistical significance, we will learn from this trial and we remain committed to improving patient outcomes by expanding the benefit of immunotherapy to lung cancer patients across treatment settings.”

At 0902 GMT, shares in AstraZeneca were down 0.33% at 10,216p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.