(Reuters) -Daiichi Sankyo and Merck said on Tuesday that their drug, patritumab deruxtecan, met the main goal in a late-stage study in some patients with a type of lung cancer.
The drug helped patients live significantly longer without their cancer progressing, compared with patients who were treated with chemotherapy, the companies said.
The drug belongs to a class of treatments called antibody-drug conjugates, which have often been described as “guided-missile” cancer drugs.
Patritumab deruxtecan was tested in patients with non-small cell lung cancer who had a gene mutation called EGFR. Non-small cell lung cancer is the most common form of lung cancer.
The study focused on patients who had previously received treatment with a class of drugs known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors.
(Reporting by Sriparna Roy and Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)
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