Roche Holding AG’s cancer drug Tarceva nearly doubles the time patients with a distinct type of lung cancer live without their disease getting worse, a late-stage trial showed on Friday.

The data will be presented at this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago, which begins later on Friday and brings together thousands of doctors and researchers.

Roche, the world’s largest maker of cancer drugs, said the data showed Tarceva nearly doubled the median progression-free survival of Western patients with a genetically distinct type of advanced non-small cell lung cancer, compared with chemotherapy.

The drug also reduced by 63 percent the risk of the patients suffering from NSCLC with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) activating mutations getting worse compared with standard chemotherapy.

Last year, Roche applied to the European Medicines Agency to extend the label for Tarceva to include the first-line treatment of people with advanced NSCLC whose tumors harbor EGFR-activating mutations.

It is now discussing a submission with U.S. authorities that will include the use of a companion diagnostic test to help identify patients with activating EGFR mutations who could use Tarceva.

It has been estimated one in 10 lung cancer patients in the West and one in three Asian patients have this type of lung cancer.

Tarceva is already sold for second- and third-line treatment, regardless of genetic profile, and had sales last year of more than $1 billion.

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(Reuters) -