AstraZeneca shares drop on concern over lung cancer trial results

AstraZeneca Plc shares fell as results from a high-level study of a new cancer medicine raised concern the drug might not work as well as anticipated.
The drug helped patients with the most common form of lung cancer live longer without worsening compared with standard chemotherapy, the UK drugmaker said on Monday. The stock fell as much as 6.2 percent as investors were expecting a clearer statement on the trial’s success in terms of progression-free
survival as well as how much longer patients lived overall.

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AstraZeneca’s description of the data suggest that the benefit is less pronounced than hoped, Jefferies analysts said. The compa-ny also reported some deaths in the trial, raising safety concerns. The trial is continuing because the data isn’t fully mature yet.

Scientists and doctors have been trying to find a more targeted approach to chemotherapy for decades in an effort to move away from the current catch-all method that involves blasting the whole body and killing good cells as well as bad. Astra’s drug — known as datopotamab deruxtecan, or Dato-DXd — takes a more potent chemo directly to the infected cells to kill the cancer while sparing the healthy cells.

Astra agreed to pay as much as $6 billion for the right to develop the medicine with Daiichi Sankyo Co. as part of a broader bet to revive growth a decade ago by building a pipeline of oncology drugs.

The treatment could garner as much as $18 billion in sales, Jefferies analysts have estimated.

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