AstraZeneca PLC Sponsored ADR (AZN.US) breast cancer drug Enhertu has shown superior effectiveness in preventing recurrence compared to competitors, and is expected to cure early stage patients.

The anticancer drug Enhertu, developed by Astrazeneca PLC Sponsored ADR (AZN.US) and Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo, has shown better treatment effects for early-stage breast cancer patients. These results have the potential to benefit more patients and bring them closer to achieving the goal of cure. In two key trials presented at the European Oncology Society meeting in Berlin last weekend, Enhertu outperformed Roche's Kadcyla in preventing disease recurrence, with better results when used before surgery. The research is crucial for the six-year collaboration between Astrazeneca PLC Sponsored ADR and Daiichi Sankyo. Their collaboration has made Enhertu one of the fastest-growing anticancer drugs globally, with sales of $3.75 billion last year. The drug was co-developed by Daiichi Sankyo, and Astrazeneca PLC Sponsored ADR agreed to pay up to $6.9 billion for joint development, making it Astrazeneca PLC Sponsored ADR's largest deal in nearly a decade. This refers to research on the drug Enhertu before surgery. Ken Keller, CEO of Daiichi Sankyo USA, said: "Our goal is to cure patients, and that's where we've been working towards. What we understand is that Enhertu will become a cornerstone treatment for early-stage HER2-positive diseases." Enhertu is an antibody-drug conjugate - a method that can deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to tumor cells while reducing damage to healthy tissue. The studies targeted HER2-positive breast cancer patients, who account for about one-fifth of cases. According to Astrazeneca PLC Sponsored ADR, early approval for the drug could benefit approximately 130,000 additional patients in the G8 group. In one study, over 92% of patients treated with Enhertu were still alive and disease-free three years after surgery, compared to 84% for the Kadcyla group. The drug reduced the risk of death or recurrence by 53%. While Kadcyla had a slightly higher rate of severe side effects, Enhertu led to more cases of interstitial lung disease, a potentially serious condition involving inflammation and scarring of lung tissue. Another study tested the drug before surgery. In patients treated with Enhertu, about two-thirds had complete disappearance of cancer cells in their breast or lymph nodes at the time of surgery, while the standard treatment group was 56%. Patients treated with Enhertu also showed fewer severe side effects. Researchers stated that data on long-term recurrence-free survival are not yet mature but show promising early trends. At the conference, doctors' biggest challenge was whether these study results mean Enhertu should be used before or after surgery. For Sara A. Hurvitz, a medical oncologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center's Cancer Research Center, she leans towards using the drug after surgery, following standard chemotherapy. She points out that there is currently no data on how long patients treated with the drug before surgery can survive without cancer recurrence. Paul-Henri Cottu, an oncologist at the Curis, Inc. research institute in Paris who was not involved in the study, expressed skepticism about the data related to using Enhertu before surgery, stating he was unsure if the data was sufficient for approval. However, he noted that the effectiveness of Enhertu after surgery is clear. Dave Fredrickson, EVP of the Oncology Business at Astrazeneca PLC Sponsored ADR, stated in an interview, "The data from these two trials have shown 'significant advantages.' When discussing the question of when Enhertu is most appropriate to use in the early stages, this is an important topic that experts in the field need to explore further."