AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi increases survival rates in bladder cancer

BARCELONA, Spain — An AstraZeneca immunotherapy, given both before and after surgery, improved survival rates in patients with bladder cancer, results that could reshape how muscle-invasive bladder tumors are treated. 

The regimen using Imfinzi, the company’s anti-PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor, cut the risk of death by 25% compared to treating patients before surgery with chemotherapy alone, researchers reported Sunday. It also lowered the risk of disease recurrence by about a third. 

“It really is offering a curative-intent regimen and improving the cure rate in the disease,” Susan Galbraith, AstraZeneca’s head of oncology R&D, told STAT at the European Society for Medical Oncology meeting in Barcelona, using the word “transformative” several times. The results of the Phase 3 NIAGARA trial were presented in a presidential session at the conference and simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine.