European Lung Cancer Conference 2015Geneva – at the 2015 European Lung Cancer Conference today, Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD presented updated progression free survival and duration of response data for the phase 1 AURA trial of AZD9291 (AstraZeneca) in patients with EFGR-TKI-resistant advanced non-small cell cancer (Abstract LBA3).

Dr Jänne (pictured below at ASCO 2014) is Director, Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr Pasi Jänne ASCO 2014

It’s hard to believe that it is only about two years since the first patient was enrolled in the phase 1 AURA trial of AZD9291, a third generation EGFR inhibitor. If the FDA regulatory submission takes place, as expected, in the second quarter of this year, then the drug could be approved for sale in the United States before the year end.

It has been fascinating to watch the race to market between rociletinib (Clovis Oncology) and AZD9291. It’s likely both could be approved in the United States before the year end.

That would be great news for lung cancer patients, given the absence of any approved therapy for patients who develop a T790M mutation and become resistant to EGFR inhibitors, such as Tarceva and Iressa.

Readers will know that we have been following the phase 1 AURA trial of AZD9291 since ECCO 2013 in Amsterdam, when the first clinical data was presented.

AstraZeneca are to be congratulated on what is a case study of rational scientific drug development; their path to market strategy highlights the benefit of well-designed early clinical trials. AZD9291 may end up receiving regulatory approval less than three years from the start of the first in man trial – that’s tremendous!

I had the privilege to interview Dr Jänne at ASCO last year, and again earlier this week, before he left Boston for Geneva and chatted with him about his AZD9291 presentation at European Lung.

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