AstraZeneca drug could help keep a common breast cancer at bay

This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily BioPharma Dive newsletter.
Too often, cancer has a way of evading treatment. Tumors that were held in check begin to spread anew, forcing doctors to try different drugs in a desperate race to keep malignant cells from multiplying.
For a common type of breast cancer, this usually happens because of changes in a gene called ESR1. Mutations there can drive cancer growth even as physicians' first choice of therapy chokes off the resources that tumors had relied on to survive.
Afterwards, the prognosis for patients gets worse. Multiple second-line medicines exist, but 'their benefit is limited, quality of life decreases and survival rates are low,' according to Nicholas Turner, director of clinical research and development at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.
New study results from Turner and others show an experimental drug from AstraZeneca, camizestrant, can help sustain the benefit of first-line therapy. Unveiled Sunday, their research found that, once ESR1 mutations are detected, swapping out a standard component of that initial regimen for AstraZeneca's drug reduced the risk of disease progression or death by more than half.
Data from the study, which AstraZeneca funded and in February said succeeded, will be presented Sunday afternoon at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting.
'Patients have an urgent need for new treatments that can prolong time on first-line therapy and delay disease progression,' Turner said in a statement provided by ASCO.
In their clinical trial, Turner and colleagues enrolled 3,256 people with advanced breast cancer positive for hormone receptors but negative for a protein called HER2. These individuals are typically treated with a kind of hormone therapy known as an aromatase inhibitor along with another type of targeted drug that interrupts cancer cell division.
Participants in the study were monitored via blood tests for the emergence of ESR1 mutations, which were eventually detected in about 550 people. Three-hundred and fifteen were then randomly assigned to receive camizestrant instead of the aromatase inhibitor or to continue on with their initial regimen. These patients continued to receive those targeted drugs, 'CDK 4/6 inhibitors.'
Patients who were switched to camizestrant had a 56% lower risk of their cancer progressing or killing them than those who continued on, researchers calculated. Put another way, people in the camizestrant group lived a median of 16 months without disease progression or death, compared to 9.2 months for those in the control arm.
Data also showed camizestrant helped maintain quality of life for longer than did aromatase inhibitors, too.
Researchers continue to follow study participants to measure differences between the groups in overall survival, but don't yet have enough follow-up data to determine whether there is a benefit on that score.
Less than 2% of patients in either group discontinued treatment due to side effects, which, for camizestrant, were consistent with what AstraZeneca has observed in prior testing.
Hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative tumors are the most common type of breast cancer, accounting for an estimated 70% of cases. Hormone receptors provide a dock for estrogen, which spurs the tumor to grow. In first-line therapy, hormone therapy shuts off estrogen signaling by either gumming up hormone receptors on the surface of breast cancer cells, or by blocking the body from making estrogen.
But about 40% of patients whose breast cancer is responsive to hormone therapy develop ESR1 mutations during their initial therapy, according to an estimate cited by ASCO. Research done a decade ago at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center discovered that ESR1 mutations change the shape of the estrogen receptor, essentially flipping it 'on,' whether or not cancer cells continue to receive an estrogen growth signal.
Camizestrant offers a way to get ahead of that change by breaking down the estrogen receptor entirely. It's one of a new crop of so-called selective estrogen receptor degraders, or SERDs, that are taken orally rather than injected like the drug fulvestrant, which has been a staple of breast cancer treatment for decades.
One member of this fresh class, Orserdu, won U.S. approval in 2023. Others from Eli Lilly and Roche, as well as a different kind of degrader from partners Pfizer and Arvinas, are in late-stage testing. Data from a Phase 3 trial involving Pfizer and Arvinas' vepdegestrant in people whose hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer progressed following initial treatment were presented at ASCO Saturday.
The setting envisioned by camizestrant's trial is one step earlier, subbing in a SERD before initial disease progression to allow patients to remain on first-line therapy longer.
'When patients progress on scans, we're already behind. We've already lost control, in some sense,' Eleonora Teplinsky, head of breast and gynecologic medical oncology at New Jersey's Valley-Mount Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Care, said in a press conference held by ASCO. 'An early switch approach, before we see disease progression on imaging, [allows] us to stay ahead of the curve.'
Switching early requires regular monitoring, which Turner and his colleagues accomplished by using 'liquid biopsies,' tests that pick up fragments of tumor DNA circulating in the blood. While these are relatively expensive, Turner said he hopes insurance would cover them should camizestrant win approval in the tested setting.
Clearance would also change doctors' testing practice. Soon after Orserdu won U.S. approval, ASCO updated its treatment guidelines to recommend testing for ESR1 mutations following disease progression or recurrence. Camizestrant's benefit lies in delaying that progression, making active surveillance beforehand essential.
'The difference here is this serial monitoring for evidence of the evolving mutation,' said Julie Gralow, an oncologist and ASCO's chief medical officer, at the press conference.
Establishing reimbursement and updating guidelines will be important to that goal, acknowledged Mohit Manrao, a senior vice president in AstraZeneca's U.S. oncology division. 'The good part here is that the test exists,' he added 'It is already being done at the point of progression,' he said.
AstraZeneca plans to use the data presented at ASCO to request regulatory approval. It is also studying replacing aromatase inhibitors with camizestrant upfront, rather than waiting for ESR1 mutations to emerge. Two other trials are examining camizestrant's potential in early breast cancer.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Yahoo

2 days ago

• Yahoo

Why Astrazeneca (AZN) is a Top Momentum Stock for the Long-Term

For new and old investors, taking full advantage of the stock market and investing with confidence are common goals. While you may have an investing style you rely on, finding great stocks is made easier with the Zacks Style Scores. These are complementary indicators that rate stocks based on value, growth, and/or momentum characteristics. Different than value or growth investors, momentum-oriented investors live by the saying "the trend is your friend." This investing style is all about taking advantage of upward or downward trends in a stock's price or earnings outlook. Employing factors like one-week price change and the monthly percentage change in earnings estimates, the Momentum Style Score can indicate favorable times to build a position in high-momentum stocks. AstraZeneca plc, headquartered in London, UK, is one of the largest biopharmaceutical companies in the world. AstraZeneca was formed on Apr 6, 1999, through the merger of Sweden's Astra AB and UK's Zeneca Group plc. AstraZeneca's business can be broken down into separate lines based on therapeutic classes. These include CVRM (cardiovascular, renal and metabolism), Respiratory & Immunology (R&I), Oncology, Rare Diseases, Vaccines and Other. AZN boasts a Momentum Style Score of B and VGM Score of A, and holds a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) rating. Shares of Astrazeneca has seen some interesting price action recently; the stock is down 5.7% over the past one week and up 1.2% over the past four weeks. And in the last one-year period, AZN has lost 9.9%. As for the stock's trading volume, 3,618,926.50 shares on average were traded over the last 20 days. A company's earnings performance is important for momentum investors as well. For fiscal 2025, two analysts revised their earnings estimate higher in the last 60 days for AZN, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate has increased $0 to $4.49 per share. AZN also boasts an average earnings surprise of 4.2%. AZN should be on investors' short list because of its impressive earnings fundamentals, a good Zacks Rank, and strong Momentum and VGM Style Scores. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Axios

2 days ago

• Axios

Exclusive: Google wants to help cities build AI strategies

Google is releasing a playbook on Friday to help mayors across the country adopt city-wide AI strategies, per an announcement shared exclusively with Axios. Why it matters: Cities are approaching the technology wildly differently and with varying levels of resources, interest and need. But the "AI divide" — like the "digital divide" that came before it with internet access — is projected to deepen tech access disparities. "Building Your City's AI Strategy," released in partnership with the United States Conference of Mayors, is meant to serve as a framework for mayors and other municipal leaders to assess and implement AI. What's inside: The guide has chapters on identifying staff to participate in an "AI workshop," conducting surveys on AI usage and needs, and drafting an AI strategy document. The survey asks questions like how staff are currently using AI tools and which areas of city services could use AI the most. The guide states that AI offers cities "significant advantages" and "can automate certain tasks while freeing up city staff for complex, human-centric work." What they're saying: "Whatever problem you've been dealing with that you've inherited from your predecessors, that you can't figure out the way to fix, AI is the once in a generation tool that gives you a shot at fixing it," Cris Turner, vice president of government affairs at Google, told Axios. By the numbers: 96% of 100 mayors across the globe surveyed by Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2023 said they were interested in using generative AI, but only 2% surveyed were actively implementing it and 69% said they were exploring it. The bottom line: Companies like Google depend on people using their generative AI products for profit. But more users help the models get better, Turner noted.

Medscape

2 days ago

• Medscape

ASCO 2025: New Standards Reshape Care in mBC

Heather McArthur, MD, describes how the 2025 ASCO Annual Meeting brought exciting advances in the metastatic breast cancer space. In PD-L1-positive triple-negative breast cancer, sacituzumab govitecan combined with pembrolizumab significantly improved progression-free survival over standard chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab, quickly becoming a new standard of care. Similarly, in HER2-positive disease, trastuzumab deruxtecan combined with pertuzumab outperformed traditional THP therapy, offering a new frontline option. Overall, these findings signify a major shift in how to treat metastatic breast cancer.