Date: 2011-12-20
Type of information: discontinuation of development
phase: 2
Announcement: discontinuation of development
Company: AstraZeneca (UK)
Product: olaparib
Action
mechanism: PARP inhibitor. Olaparib is an oral PARP inhibitor. It inhibits PARP involved in a DNA repair pathway (Base Excision Repair). Inhibition of PARP results in a build-up of DNA damage in the cell, requiring repair via an alternative pathway called Homologous Recombination repair (HR). Cancer cells that already have a damaged HR pathway are limited in their ability repairing their DNA, overloading them with DNA damage and causing them to die. Importantly, normal (non-cancer) cells, that have full DNA repair capacity are unaffected by PARP inhibition, resulting in tumour selective cell killing.
Disease: serous ovarian cancer
Therapeutic area: Cancer Oncology
Country:
Trial details:
Latest
news: AstraZeneca announced that its investigational compound olaparib will not progress into Phase III development for the maintenance treatment of serous ovarian cancer. The decision to discontinue olaparib’s development in serous ovarian cancer was made following a review of an interim analysis of a Phase II study (study 19) which indicated that the previously reported progression free survival benefit is unlikely to translate into an overall survival benefit, the definitive measure of patient benefit in ovarian cancer. In addition, attempts to identify a suitable tablet dose for use in Phase III studies have not been successful. No new safety concerns were identified for patients.
The investigational cancer treatment olaparib was acquired when AstraZeneca bought KuDOS Pharmaceuticals in 2005.
