Roche's Kadcyla flunks a gastric cancer study

Kadcyla, a groundbreaking cancer treatment from Roche ($RHHBY) and partner ImmunoGen, missed the mark in a Phase III study on gastric cancer, narrowing its potential on the market. In a trial on 412 gastric cancer patients already treated with first-line therapy, the drug failed to significantly improve overall survival versus the old treatments docetaxel or paclitaxel, Roche said. Kadcyla, an antibody-drug conjugate, won approval for late-stage breast cancer in 2013, and Roche is working to flesh out its potential in lung cancer. More (PDF)