Roche announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) voted 7 to 2 in favour of maintaining accelerated approval of Tecentriq® (atezolizumab) in combination with chemotherapy (Abraxane®, albumin-bound paclitaxel; nab-paclitaxel) for the treatment of adults with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (mTNBC) whose tumours express PD-L1, as determined by an FDA-approved test. Today’s ODAC meeting is part of an industry-wide review of accelerated approvals with confirmatory trials that have not met their primary endpoint(s) and have yet to gain regular approvals. The advisory committee provides the FDA with independent opinions and recommendations from outside medical experts, though the recommendations are not binding. The FDA has not announced when it will make its final decision for Tecentriq in this indication.
The FDA’s Accelerated Approval Program allows for conditional approval of a medicine that fills an unmet medical need for a serious condition, with specific postmarketing requirements (PMRs) to confirm the clinical benefit and convert to regular approval.
Tecentriq was granted accelerated approval in March 2019 for the treatment of adults with PD-L1 positive, unresectable locally advanced or mTNBC based on the positive progression-free survival (PFS) results from the IMpassion130 study. Continued approval for this indication was contingent upon the results of IMpassion131, the PMR for the mTNBC indication. This study did not meet its primary endpoint of PFS for the initial (first-line) treatment of people with mTNBC in the PD-L1-positive population. As the clinically meaningful benefit demonstrated in the IMpassion130 study remains, Roche looks forward to continuing to work with the FDA to determine next steps with regard to Tecentriq in this indication.
