AstraZeneca Resumes Enrolment for Cancer Drug Trial -- Update

By Denise Roland

AstraZeneca PLC said it had resumed recruiting patients into two large clinical trials on head and neck cancer that had been paused due to concerns over bleeding.

The Cambridge, U.K.-based company last month suspended recruitment into the trials in order to investigate whether the bleeding had been caused by its drugs. Patients already involved in the trial had continued to participate.

It said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had said the company can continue both trials without altering their design.

Bleeding is a known complication while treating head and neck cancer due to the nature of the disease, AstraZeneca said. Prior therapies such as surgery and radiation can also cause bleeding, it said.

The trials in question are testing whether a drug called durvalumab, used alone or in combination with another of Astra's experimental cancer medicines known as tremelimumab, prolongs survival in patients with head and neck cancer.

Astra is also testing these drugs in lung and bladder cancer, and those trials have continued as normal.

Durvalumab and tremelimumab are central to AstraZeneca's goal of increasing revenue to $45 billion by 2023, nearly double the $25 billion it generated in 2015. That target was unveiled by Chief Executive Pascal Soriot to ward off an unwelcome, and ultimately failed, takeover bid by Pfizer Inc. Astra expects durvalumab alone to generate $6.5 billion in annual revenue at its peak, if approved as a treatment for several tumor types.

Write to Denise Roland at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 22, 2016 03:18 ET (08:18 GMT)

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