AstraZeneca drug shows promise as lung cancer treatment

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AstraZeneca drug shows promise as lung cancer treatment

Britain's AstraZeneca Plc, the target of a $106 billion takeover effort by Pfizer Inc, released promising data on Wednesday for a new lung cancer treatment targeting a genetic mutation that helps tumors evade current treatments. Tumors shrank in 64 percent of patients found to have the mutation, known as T790M, which develops in about half of lung cancers that become resistant to drugs known as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors. These drugs, such as Roche's Tarceva, or erlotinib, are used to treat various solid tumor cancers with mutated or overactive EGFR. Around 15 percent of patients with non-small cell lung cancer, the most common form of the disease, have mutations in the EGFR gene.

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