MADRID — A competition has been brewing between two pharma titans — Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca — to gain an edge in the market for targeted lung cancer treatments. A primetime presentation here Monday amounted to the latest salvo.
At the annual meeting of the European Society for Medical Oncology, J&J unveiled three studies of its drug Rybrevant in different patient groups with non-small cell lung cancer with EGFR mutations. All were successful, with the drug, sometimes used in combination with other therapies, helping stave off progression of the disease.
In an interview, Mark Wildgust, J&J’s vice president of global medical affairs for oncology, framed the totality of the research as a case that Rybrevant could become a regularly used treatment for these patients.