Amgen says Imdelltra plus durvalumab extends survival in lung cancer trial

Median overall survival reached 21.1 months on the combination, against 12.7 months on durvalumab alone.

Amgen says its drug Imdelltra, given with durvalumab, extended median overall survival to 21.1 months in patients with first-line extensive-stage small cell lung cancer. Patients on durvalumab alone reached 12.7 months.

Nearly 80 per cent of patients on the combination were alive at one year, against 53 per cent on durvalumab alone. Amgen says progression-free survival more than tripled. The combination cut the risk of death by 58 per cent.

Amgen says adverse events of grade 3 or higher occurred in 20.9 per cent of patients. It says the safety profile is consistent with the known profiles of the individual medicines.

The trial is the Phase 3 DeLLphi-305 study, run by Amgen and AstraZeneca together. The size of the benefit is greater than the market had been pricing in from an earlier data-sharing update on October 22. Extensive-stage disease has had few first-line options beyond chemo-immunotherapy. A result this strong could support a label expansion for Imdelltra into first-line use, well beyond its current use in relapsed disease. The safety figure removes a key obstacle to wider use alongside durvalumab. The result also fits a recent pattern at AstraZeneca of backing combination therapies across its oncology pipeline, a pattern that was already visible on September 29.