(Reuters) – Novocure said on Monday its experimental therapy extended the lives of patients with a form of advanced pancreatic cancer when combined with chemotherapy, achieving the primary goal in a late-stage trial.
The therapy uses Tumor Treating Fields, or electric fields, to kill cancer cells while sparing most nearby healthy cells, using a portable device placed on the skin near the tumor.
In the study, TTFields therapy concomitant with chemotherapy helped patients live for an average of 16.20 months, compared to 14.16 months in patients treated with chemotherapy alone, Novocure said.
The treatment’s safety was consistent with prior clinical studies, the company said.
The therapy also helped improve survival rates over time, according to Novocure. The rate of overall survival, or the length of time a patient lives from the start of treatment, improved by 13% at 12 months and by 33% at 24 months, the company said.
Novocure said it would present full data from the study at an upcoming medical meeting and file for regulatory approval in the United States, the EU, Japan and other markets.
The therapy is approved for use in some patients with a type of lung cancer, a type of cancer that starts in the brain and spinal cord as well as a rare cancer that grows in the membrane lining the walls of the chest and lungs. Branded Optune Gio and Optune Lua, it brought in about $509 million in revenue globally in 2023.
The device had failed to improve survival rates in patients with a type of ovarian cancer last year.
The latest study enrolled 571 patients with locally advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma, which cannot be removed surgically, who received either TTFields therapy along with chemotherapy or chemotherapy alone for at least 18 months.
Pancreatic cancer accounts for about 3% of all cancers in the U.S. and about 7% of all cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.
(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
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