Pharmaceuticals Roche suffers setback with novel cancer therapy

The pharmaceutical company Roche has suffered a research setback. The novel cancer drug tiragolumab did not meet the targets set in a study, as the company announced on Thursday.

In the study, tiragolumab was used together with the immunotherapeutic agent Tecentriq plus chemotherapy in patients with so-called non-small cell lung cancer. This combination was compared with treatment with pembrolizumab from Merck/MSD) and chemotherapy.

The main objective of the study was progression-free survival, i.e. the time from the start of treatment in a clinical trial until further progression of the disease or the patient's death.

The "overall survival" target was also not achieved. This target measures how long patients with a disease live. In fact, the combination tested by Roche showed less efficacy in these two objectives than the comparator combination.

Based on these results, Roche now intends to end the study. The results will be communicated to the health authorities and then presented at an upcoming medical meeting. This is a setback for the pharmaceutical company, as it had high hopes for the new active substance.

SDA