focus

There are a lot of reasons why updated data on Pfizer’s Lorbrena, a treatment for non-small cell lung cancer, might not seem to be a big deal. The results are an update on the clinical trial that resulted in the Food and Drug Administration granting Lorbrena full approval in 2001, so in a sense they are not even that new. For Pfizer investors, Lorbrena isn’t that big a deal, either. The medicine, for patients whose lung tumors have particular genetic mutations, generated only $575 million last year — an amount that is up 57% from the year prior, but that still constitutes only 1% of the drug giant’s annual sales.

But there is one number that makes the Lorbrena data quite eye-catching: In the updated data, the daily pill decreased the risk that cancer would progress or that a patient would die by 81% over five years.

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That’s a stunning number, especially when one considers that Lorbrena was not being compared to an inert placebo but to Xalkori, another Pfizer targeted cancer drug.

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