J&J says its lung cancer drug combination keeps people alive longer

Johnson & Johnson on Tuesdaysaid its lung cancer regimen keeps people alive for at least a year longer than AstraZeneca's Tagrisso, the go-to drug for a certain type of lung cancer.

J&J in a statement said its drugs – Rybrevant and Lazcluze – showed a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement to survival relative to Tagrisso in a pivotal trial. The company expects the benefit to be at least a year and possibly longer, J&J executives said in an interview. The company plans to present the full results at a medical meeting later this year.

"This is an absolute igniter," said Biljana Naumovic, president of U.S. Oncology Solid Tumor at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine. "People were looking for an overall survival difference."

J&J is trying to supplant AstraZeneca's blockbuster Tagrisso, a once-daily pill that has transformed the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer with EGFR mutations and extended the median survival to about three years. These genetic errors cause cancer cells to proliferate. They're responsible for between 10% and 15% of lung cancer cases in the U.S., according to the American Lung Association.

J&J executives hailed the result as a game-changer that should change the treatment of this type of lung cancer. But there's no guarantee doctors and patients will all switch to using Rybrevant and Lazcluze since the regimen comes with more side effects and requires infusions every few weeks, said Dr. Stephen Liu, director of thoracic oncology and head of developmental therapeutics at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"I think the announcement that this leads to people living longer will force a harder look," Liu said.

He wants to see who benefited the most so he