Pfizer’s breast cancer drug improves progression-free survival in Phase 3 trial

The study has demonstrated enhanced PFS in patients treated with talazoparib compared against patients who received physician’s choice standard of care chemotherapy.

Talazoparib is an investigational, oral and dual-mechanism poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, which is taken once daily

Embraca is a global, open-label, randomized, parallel and two-arm study of talazoparib against protocol-specific physician’s choice of standard single-agent chemotherapy in gBRCA+ patients who may have received up to three prior cytotoxic chemotherapy regimens for locally advanced and/or metastatic breast cancer.

The company has randomized 431 patients in 2:1 ration to secure talazoparib (1.0mg) once daily or PCT.

Talazoparib also showed improved activity in patients with gBRCA+ MBC in the Phase 2 Abrazo trial, in addition to Embraca.

Currently, talazoparib is being assessed in advanced gBRCA+ breast cancer and other cancer types with deficiencies in DNA damage repair (DDR).

The drug is also being studied in DDR-deficient prostate cancer and in combination with immunotherapy in various tumor types.

Pfizer Oncology global product development chief development officer Mace Rothenberg said: “Results from the EMBRACA study are very encouraging and a great example of precision drug development.

“By enrolling only patients with germline BRCA-positive metastatic breast cancer, treatment with talazoparib reduced the risk of disease worsening by nearly half, compared with current standard of care chemotherapy.”