Iza-bren nearly doubles progression-free survival in lung cancer — South China Morning Post

In China, the drug iza-bren demonstrated a median progression-free survival nearly twice as long in patients with advanced lung cancer as platinum-based chemotherapy. The South China Morning Post reports on the results of a randomized, double-blind Phase III trial involving 432 patients at 73 hospitals in China.

Study results

The median progression-free survival rate — the period during which the disease does not worsen during or after treatment — was 11.1 months in the iza-bren group. In the chemotherapy group, it was 5.7 months.

The confirmed objective response rate, meaning a reduction in tumor burden to at least a specified level, was 60.2% in the new drug group versus 34.5% in the chemotherapy group. The results were presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology congress in Madrid, and the study was published online in The Lancet on October 26.

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Safety and use of the drug

In the study, 98% of participants had stage IV cancer. All had previously received third-generation EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors, while 72–73% of patients had also undergone one previous line of systemic therapy.

Researchers recorded a higher incidence of adverse reactions in the iza-bren group, mainly related to blood cell counts. Severe side effects occurred in 79% of patients receiving the drug and in 62% of patients in the chemotherapy group. At the same time, no new safety concerns were identified, and 1.9% of participants in the iza-bren group discontinued therapy because of the severity of treatment-related adverse events.

Iza-bren, or izalontamab brengitecan, is a bispecific antibody-drug conjugate targeting EGFR and HER3 antigens. China has already approved it for the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Applications to register the drug for lung cancer and two types of breast cancer are under review.