FDA Approves One-Of-A-Kind Drug For Treating Advanced Pancreatic Cancer

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of the medication Lynparza to treat advanced pancreatic cancer. Lynparza manufacturers AstraZeneca and Merck have announced the approval which has been confirmed by FDA staff.

CBS reports that the approval comes after a study showed that pancreatic cancer patients taking Lynparza lived twice as long as those without the disease progressing as those taking the placebo. AstraZeneca and Merck developed the drug in 2017 in the hopes that it would be used to treat multiple types of cancer. An FDA panel has officially recommended the drug following the study earlier this month.

In a joint news release from AstraZeneca and Merck, the two companies reported that Lynparza reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 47 percent in patients whose disease had not progressed on at least 16 weeks of a 1st-line platinum-based chemotherapy regimen.

“Patients with advanced pancreatic cancer historically have faced poor outcomes due to the aggressive nature of the disease and limited treatment advances over the last few decades," says Dave Fredrickson, Executive Vice President of AstraZeneca’s Oncology Business Unit. "Lynparza is now the only approved targeted medicine in biomarker-selected patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.”

Julie Fleshman, president and CEO of Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, added: "Metastatic pancreatic cancer patients have been waiting a long time for new therapy options for their devastating disease.”

The approval represents a significant step forward against this aggressive disease, which usually goes undetected until its advanced stages. The American Cancer Society forecasts that nearly 46,000 Americans will die of the disease this year, an overwhelming majority of the over 56,000 that were diagnosed with the disease this year.

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth deadliest types of cancer, and among the most difficult to effectively treat. The disease accounts for about three percent of all cancers in the US and about seven percent of all cancer deaths.