New drug shows benefits in Lung, Bladder Cancer tests

In its Phase II trial targeting advanced or metastatic bladder cancer, Roche said its Atezolizumab immunotherapy drug shrank tumors in 27 percent of people who expressed medium and high levels of PD-L1, a protein that appears to help cancers evade the immune system.
In two separate Phase II trials targeting advanced non-small cell lung cancer, Roche said patients getting atezolizumab lived 7.7 months longer than those who got chemotherapy. The drug also shrank tumors in up to 27 percent of lung cancer sufferers whose disease had progressed with other treatments and who expressed the highest PD-L1 levels, the Swiss company said.

"We plan to submit these results to global health authorities to bring this potential new option to people as soon as possible," said Sandra Hornung, Roche's chief medical officer, in a statement.
Roche won 'breakthrough therapy status' for atezolizumab in February from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is now calling it the "first new therapy for bladder cancer in 30 years."
"Durable responses are not something you currently see in bladder cancer with chemotherapy," said Thomas Buechele, Roche's head of global medical affairs in hematology and oncology, in an interview.