AZ/Merck & Co get new US use for ovarian cancer drug

After several disappointments this year AstraZeneca has ended 2018 on a positive note, gaining a new use for its ovarian cancer drug Lynparza in the US and the first approval in China for its new anemia drug. While AZ’s immunotherapy drug Imfinzi has made some missteps recently, most notably in first-line lung cancer, its well-established poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) class drug Lynparza has gone from strength to strength. AZ is developing Lynparza with Merck & Co, and the FDA has just approved the drug in a new first-line maintenance therapy indication for certain patients with ovarian cancer. The drug can now be used in adults with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline or somatic BRCA-mutated (gBRCAm or sBRCAm) advanced epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal cancer who are in complete or partial response to first-line platinum-based chemotherapy.