FDA accepts Roche’s sBLA for Avastin to treat women with advanced ovarian cancer

“About 80 percent of women with ovarian cancer are diagnosed in the advanced stages when the disease is difficult to treat and options are limited,” said Sandra Horning, M.D., chief medical officer and head of Global Product Development.

“We are committed to working closely with the FDA to bring this potential new treatment option to women with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer as soon as possible.”

This sBLA for Avastin, in combination with carboplatin and paclitaxel, followed by Avastin as a single agent, for the front-line treatment of people with advanced epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer, is based on data from the pivotal Phase III GOG-0218 trial. In newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer, the first treatment a woman receives after surgery is known as front-line treatment. The FDA is expected to make a decision on approval by June 25, 2018.

This is part of our broader development program for Avastin in ovarian cancer. Avastin is currently approved for treating two different forms of advanced disease that recurred after platinum-based chemotherapy. In addition, Genentech is evaluating Avastin in combination with Tecentriq® (atezolizumab) and chemotherapy for the treatment of newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer in the Phase III IMagyn050 trial (NCT03038100).

GOG-0218 (NCT00262847) is a multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase III study in 1,873 women with previously untreated advanced epithelial ovarian, primary peritoneal, or fallopian tube carcinoma who already had surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible. Participants were randomized into one of three treatment arms: chemotherapy alone (carboplatin and paclitaxel), Avastin (15 mg/kg) plus chemotherapy followed by placebo alone, or Avastin plus chemotherapy followed by Avastin alone. Women who received Avastin in combination with chemotherapy, and continued use of Avastin alone for a total duration of 22 cycles, had a median progression-free survival (PFS) of 18.2 months compared to 12.0 months in women who received chemotherapy alone (HR=0.64; 95% CI 0.54 – 0.77, p<0.0001). Secondary endpoints of the study included overall survival (OS) and objective response rate (ORR).

Adverse events were consistent with those seen in previous trials of Avastin across tumor types for approved indications. The study was conducted by the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) and their initial results were previously published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

With the initial approval in the United States for advanced colorectal cancer in 2004, Avastin became the first anti-angiogenic therapy made widely available for the treatment of patients with an advanced cancer.

Today, Avastin is continuing to transform cancer care through its proven survival benefit (overall survival and/or progression free survival) across several types of cancer. Avastin is approved in Europe for the treatment of advanced stages of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, kidney cancer, ovarian cancer and cervical cancer, and is available in the United States for the treatment of colorectal cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, kidney cancer, cervical cancer and recurrent, platinum-resistant and platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer. I