AstraZeneca gets orphan drug designation for pancreatic cancer drug Lynparza

UK: AstraZeneca has announced that Lynparza (olaparib) has been granted orphan drug designation (ODD) in Japan for the maintenance treatment of germline BRCA-mutated (gBRCAm) curatively unresectable pancreatic cancer.

Lynparza is co-developed and co-commercialized with MSD Inc., Kenilworth, N.J., US (MSD: known as Merck & Co., Inc. inside the US and Canada).

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare grant ODD to medicines intended for the treatment of diseases that affect fewer than 50,000 patients in Japan and for which there is a high unmet medical need.

Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival rate of the most common cancers and is the only major cancer with a five-year survival rate below 10% in almost every country.

José Baselga, Executive Vice President, R&D Oncology, said: "Japan has the fifth-highest incidence of pancreatic cancer worldwide and patients have seen limited treatment advances over the last few decades. This designation is an important step forward in bringing the first targeted medicine to biomarker-selected patients with advanced pancreatic cancer in Japan."

Roy Baynes, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Clinical Development, Chief Medical Officer, MSD Research Laboratories, said: "A pancreatic cancer diagnosis is devastating and we are committed to research that aims to change the prognosis for patients. The POLO trial demonstrated that treatment with Lynparza extended time without disease progression or death in patients with germline BRCA-mutated metastatic pancreatic cancer and we are hopeful that we will be able to bring this treatment to patients in Japan soon."

The Phase III POLO trial showed Lynparza nearly doubled the time patients with gBRCAm metastatic pancreatic cancer lived without disease progression or death to a median of 7.4 months versus 3.8 months on placebo. The safety and tolerability profile of Lynparza in the POLO trial was in line with that observed in previous trials.

Lynparza was approved in the US as a 1st-line maintenance treatment for patients with gBRCAm metastatic pancreatic cancer in December 2019 with ongoing regulatory reviews in the EU and other jurisdictions.

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