Roche Holding AG’s lung cancer drug scored a big win against a standard therapy in a study this week. Now, the Swiss drugmaker is turning to artificial intelligence to find patients who can benefit.
When given after surgery to remove lung tumours, Roche’s Alecensa cut the risk of either cancer recurrence or death by 76% compared with standard chemotherapy, according to results from a primary analysis of the trial released Wednesday. The drug could “potentially alter the course of this disease,” Roche Chief Medical Officer Levi Garraway said in a statement.
But finding patients to treat may be difficult: the study examined the effects on people with an error in a gene called ALK that’s found in only about 4% to 5% of lung cancer patients. Most of them are younger and less likely to have smoked than typical lung tumour patients, and often go undiagnosed early on.
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