MRK Merck and Co Inc

   By Oliver Griffin 
 

AstraZeneca PLC (AZN.LN) on Monday said phase 3 results from a trial of its Lynparza cancer treatment, developed with Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK), demonstrated that the drug nearly doubled the time patients lived without disease progression.

The British pharmaceutical company said the POLO trial of Lynparza for patients with pancreatic cancer showed that 22% of remained free of disease progression after two years, compared with just 10% on a placebo.

AstraZeneca said Lynparza is now the first PARP inhibitor--a key type of cancer treatment--to demonstrate benefit in three different cancer types.

Jose Baselga, the company's executive vice president of oncology research and development, said the "unprecedented results" raise new hope for patients that have seen little progress over a long time.

Separately, AstraZeneca said that results from the phase 3 Pacific trial of Imfinzi, a treatment used to treat non-small cell lung cancer, ended with 57% of patients alive at three years, compared with 43.5% receiving the placebo.

Write to Oliver Griffin at oliver.griffin@dowjones.com; @OliGGriffin

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 03, 2019 02:33 ET (06:33 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.