AstraZeneca to move three cancer drugs into phase III testing

AstraZeneca has announced that it will be moving three of its most promising cancer compounds forward to phase III clinical development over the coming months.

The company's global biologics research and development arm MedImmune has already enrolled the first patient in a phase III trial of the drug moxetumomab pasudotox, which will be assessed as a treatment for unresponsive or relapsed hairy cell leukaemia patients.

Later this year, the firm will trial olaparib among platinum-sensitive relapsed ovarian cancer patients with BRCA mutations, while selumetinib will be studied as a therapy for non-small cell lung cancer patients with KRAS mutations.

The announcements come in advance of the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which AstraZeneca will attend later this month.

Menelas Pangalos, executive vice-president for innovative medicines and early development at AstraZeneca, said: "As one of our three core therapy areas, we are committed to investing in innovative science in oncology to address areas of high unmet medical need."

This comes after the company announced new cancer research alliances with Horizon Discovery, Bind Therapeutics and Oxford Cancer Biomarkers last month.