AstraZeneca's Drug Olaparib Appears to Benefit Targeted Prostate Cancer Patients

Scientists in the U.K. say that AstraZeneca’s ($AZN) drug olaparib, approved by the FDA late last year to treat ovarian cancer and sold as Lynparza, has demonstrated distinct signs of efficacy in a small and very targeted group of prostate cancer patients who share a distinct type of genetic mutation.
Olaparib is a poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, which blocks enzymes involved in DNA repair. It’s used among women suffering from ovarian cancer who have BRCA gene mutations identified through a genetic test.
The team of researchers from the Institute of Cancer Research in London and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust recruited 49 treatment-resistant, metastatic prostate cancer patients and tested the drug on them. What excited them was that 14 of the patients who responded to the drug also had genetic mutations linked with DNA repair, a profile shared by 16 patients.
“This trial is exciting because it could offer a new way to treat prostate cancer by targeting genetic mistakes in cancers that have spread,” noted Áine McCarthy, the science information officer at Cancer Research UK, which helped fund the work, in a statement. “The hope is that this approach could help save many more lives in the future.” The results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

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