AstraZeneca shares fall 5% on disappointing lung cancer drug trial results

AstraZeneca shares fell more than 5% Tuesday morning, the biggest one-day drop in seven months, after the British pharmaceutical giant announced disappointing lung cancer drug trial results.

The Covid-19 vaccine maker was trading at the bottom of the FTSE 100 and dragged the wider healthcare sector lower after data published Monday showed that its experimental drug did not significantly improve overall survival results for patients.

Share were down 4.5% by 10:10 a.m. London time.

The late-stage trial results from the TROPION-Lung01 Phase III trial showed that the overall survival rate from the new drug "did not reach statistical significance," the company said.

The company's Dato-DXd drug was being trialled against chemotherapy treatment docetaxel on patients whose non-small cell lung cancer had returned after one or two previous treatment attempts.

Susan Galbraith, executive vice president of oncology R&D at AstraZeneca, said the results showed a "clinically meaningful" trends towards improving the survival rate of patients with advanced lung cancer.

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