AstraZeneca suffers cancer treatment set-back

8th Mar 2010 07:05

Drug giant AstraZeneca said its metastatic colorectal cancer treatment Recentin failed to meet the primary endpoint in a clinical study to compare it with rival treatment Avastin.'While we recognised that challenging Avastin would be a high hurdle, it is still disappointing, despite evidence of clinical activity with RECENTIN, not to have met the primary endpoint in this study,' Alan Barge of Astra's oncology division said.AstraZeneca is continuing with another study to assess the impact of Recentin combined with chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone and one to assess the drug's utility as a treatment for tumours.Despite the Recentin set-back, Astra has re-confirmed its financial guidance for 2010, having last month raised its earnings per share forecast for this year from between $5.75 and $6.15 to $5.90 to $6.30.