Amgen reports pair of positive clinical trial results
Amgen announced positive results from clinical trials of two separate drugs in late August.
On Aug. 30, the Thousand Oaks-based biotech giant said its Phase 3 trail evaluating daily oral doses of Lumakras, a treatment for non-small cell lung cancer, “met its primary endpoint of progression-free survival” and demonstrated statistically significant superiority over the current standard chemotherapy treatment.
The study assessed the effects of Lumakras on 345 patients with non-small cell lung cancer who had previously been traded with chemotherapy.
Lumakras is Amgen’s brand name for sotorasib, a drug that targets a specific genetic mutation responsible for certain forms of cancer. Amgen is also testing the drug on patients with other types of cancer.
On Aug. 23, Amgen announced that a Phase 3 study of a biosimilar version of the immunosuppressive drug Soliris was successful, showing no clinically meaningful difference between the version developed by Alexion and Amgen’s treatment.
Biosimilars are the biotech version of generic drugs; Soliris is the brand name for a drug called eculizumab, and Amgen’s version, currently under development, is known for now as ABP 959.
