by Michael Erman

Pfizer said it expects annual sales of its cancer drug Lorbrena to exceed $1 billion by 2030, based on data presented Friday that showed most of the patients being treated have a rare form of cancer. Advanced lung cancer one of Clinical Trials Even after five years the disease did not become more serious and he remained alive.

Lorbrena, e.g. Pfizer’s Xalkoriis designed to treat cancers with mutations of a specific gene called Anaplastic lymphoma kinaseOr ALK.

Sixty percent of ALK-positive patients with advanced lung cancer who were treated with Lorbrena experienced no symptoms. disease progression The milestone comes five years later, according to follow-up results from the company’s Phase 3 CROWN trial presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago.

In comparison, only 8 percent of patients treated with Xalkori had five-year progression-free survival.

The data also showed that about 53 percent of Lorbrena patients whose cancer had spread to the brain at the start of the trial were alive with no disease progression after five years.

“We believe this is a huge opportunity for Pfizer,” Chief Oncology Officer Chris Boshoff said in an interview.

Boshoff said that with “increased demand, increasing market penetration, longer duration of treatment, more patients being tested for ALK mutations,” “we believe this is a very different opportunity than Xalkori,” which never reached annual sales of more than $1 billion.

Boshoff said China would be a particularly important market for Lorbrena, while globally, about 4 percent of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have been diagnosed with the cancer. ALK-positive tumorsThis problem is found in up to 7 percent of patients in China. NSCLC is the most common type of lung cancer.

Boshoff also said that many patients Pfizer’s clinical trials have been on Lorbrena for over 5 years, while the median progression-free survival for Xalkori is 10 to 11 months.

Lorbrena, which received U.S. approval in March 2021, had sales of $164 million in the first quarter of 2024, up 46 percent from a year earlier. Boshoff said the company expects continued double-digit growth in the coming quarters.

Investors have fled Pfizer because of billions of dollars in losses. covid-19 vaccine And as pandemic concerns subsided, sales of the treatment disappeared.

The company responded by acquiring it for $43 billion Cancer drug maker Seagencost-cutting, and an internal reorganization that prioritized cancer drugs.

In February, the New York-based drugmaker said its cancer unit would have at least eight blockbuster drugs by 2030, up from five currently. (Reporting by Michael Erman in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)