Astrazeneca progresses with ovarian cancer drug

30th Sep 2013 14:43

AstraZeneca inched higher on Monday after announcing that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has accepted its Marketing Authorisation Application (MAA) for olaparib, a drug used in the maintenance treatment of patients with a particular type of ovarian cancer. The group said olaparib has the potential to be the first drug of its type.The drug has been shown in pre-clinical models to exploit DNA repair pathway deficiencies to preferentially kill cancer cells. The group explained that this mode of action gives olaparib the potential for activity in a range of tumour types with DNA repair deficiencies.Ovarian cancer is the eighth most commonly diagnosed cancer in women and the seventh leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide, mainly because it is often diagnosed late and has an extremely poor prognosis.The study was randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled. NR