US approves Astrazeneca lung cancer drug Imfinzi for treatment

Astrazeneca’s lung cancer drug Imfinzi has been approved for treatment in the US to be used both before and after surgery, just days after the company’s market value hit £200bn for the first time.

Imfinzi, which is meant to treat early-stage non-small cell lung cancer alongside chemotherapy, is administered before and after surgery.

The approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was based on positive results from trials in October 2023, which Astrazeneca said found a 32 per cent reduction in the risk of recurrence, progression or death compared to chemo alone.

In an analysis, treatment with Imfinzi plus chemotherapy before surgery resulted in a pathological complete response rate of 17.2 per cent versus 4.3 per cent for patients treated with chemotherapy alone, it added.

The drug works by blocking a cancer tumour’s ability to evade and dampen the immune system, as well as boosting the body’s anti-cancer immune response.

This week, Astrazeneca became the most recent UK-listed company to achieve a market valuation of £200bn.

The company’s shares rose by 1.1 per cent on Tuesday, propelling its market capitalisation to £200.3bn, a feat achieved before by only Vodafone and Shell.

After further increases on Wednesday and Thursday, the group’s market capitalisation is now up to £201.2bn, and its stock price is up more than 20 per cent since the start of 2024.

Imfinzi is also approved in the UK, Switzerland and Taiwan, with regulatory applications currently under review in the EU, China and several other countries.

Each year, there are around 2.4m people diagnosed with lung cancer worldwide, with around 235,000 new diagnoses expected in the US next year.

Dave Fredrickson, executive vice president of the oncology business unit at AstraZeneca, said: “Today’s approval of Imfinzi in resectable early-stage lung cancer builds on its strong foundation of changing clinical practice in unresectable Stage III disease.

“We remain committed to bringing novel approaches like AEGEAN to early lung cancer settings where cure is the goal of treatment.”