AstraZeneca shares fell Monday after a late-stage study on a lung cancer drug disappointed investors.
AstraZeneca’s
AZN,
-8.83%
AZN,
-8.00%
shares slumped as much as 6% as the U.K. drugmaker said its datopotamab deruxtecan treatment showed positive results in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer in a clinical Phase 3 trial.
That sounds good, but there were important caveats for a drug that some analysts say has the potential for peak sales of over $10 billion. AstraZeneca said the trial will continue to assess the dual primary endpoint of overall survival as the data “were not mature” and did not meet the prespecified threshold for statistical significance at this interim analysis.
Analysts at UBS also pointed out the company did not quantify the progression-free benefit, which it usually does.
Analysts at Shore Capital said the company had previously outlined that a two- to three-month improvement in progression-free survival versus docetaxel would be needed for the result to be considered clinically meaningful.
AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo
4568,
+0.62%
are jointly developing and commercializing datopotamab deruxtecan.
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