-=Seattle Genetics (SGEN) soars on positive trial of breast cancer treatment

• The biotech company added a drug called tucatinib to a regimen using Roche's Herceptin and a generic medicine known as capecitabine. Using all three drugs improved outcomes in patients with breast cancer, including those whose cancer spread to the brain.
• Patients who received the regimen were 46% less likely to worsen than those who took just Herceptin and capecitabine. The tucatinib regimen also improved overall survival by 34% compared with the combination of Herceptin and capecitabine alone.
• Notably, the three-drug regimen showed promise in patients whose cancer had spread to the brain. Adding tucatinib to Herceptin and capecitabine reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 52% in these patients vs. those on the two-drug breast cancer treatment.

Seattle Genetics Inc. announced positive results in a trial of a treatment for breast cancer.
Bothell, Wash.-based Seattle Genetics said the trial of tucatinib in locally advanced or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer met its primary endpoint of progression-free survival. Patients were treated with tucatinib in combination with trastuzumab and capecitabine to trastuzumab and capecitabine alone. The trial also met its secondary endpoints.

"Based on these findings, we plan to unblind the trial and offer tucatinib to patients on the control arm," Chief Medical Officer Roger Dansey said in a statement. The company is also planning to submit a New Drug Application to the FDA in the first quarter of 2020, he said. HER2-positive breast cancer is an aggressive form of the disease that affects 15% to 20% of cases worldwide. The trial is expected to enroll about 460 patients in North America, Europe and Asia. Leerink analysts said the trial is another win for Seattle Genetics and a "near best-case scenario."