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Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) announced new long-term data to support its lung cancer therapy Lorbrena (lorlatinib) on Friday. The company noted that the FDA-approved oral treatment cut the risk of disease progression or death by 81% in a late-stage trial for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The readout was based on its Phase 3 CROWN trial, which enrolled previously untreated NSCLC patients whose cancers were positive for the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) receptor. They were randomized to receive Lorbrena or Pfizer’s (PFE) lung cancer therapy, Xalkori.
Lorbrena outperformed Xalkori, indicating an 81% reduction in disease progression or death rate, the company said.
Meanwhile, only 8% in the Xalkori arm were alive without disease progression after five years, compared to 60% in the on-drug arm.
As for tolerability, no new safety signals were linked to Lorbrena, and the five-year follow-up data for both drugs was in line with previous findings.
In 2021, the FDA approved Lorbrena as a first-line therapy for ALK-positive NSCLC based on CROWN data, which at the time indicated a 72% reduction in risk of progression or death vs. Xalkori.