[ASCO 2025] Anticancer giant AZ expands its therapeutic armamentarium with Camizestrant-Imfinzi

CHICAGO, Ill—By Hong Sook/ Korea Biomedical Review correspondent—AstraZeneca, the oncology leader with Enhertu, co-developed with Daiichi Sankyo, is expanding its treatment of hormone receptor (HR) breast cancer and HER2-positive gastric cancer.

For the seventh consecutive year, AstraZeneca has been selected to present a plenary session at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, which is being held in Chicago, USA, from Saturday to Tuesday (local time).

Clinical data from the plenary session will be available to the public on the first day. The ASCO Plenary Session is the most highly anticipated research presentation at ASCO, with an average of four to six studies selected from thousands of abstracts.

SERENA-6, selected for a Plenary Session at ASCO, is a phase 3 trial comparing switching to the combination of Camizestrant vs. continuing the standard of care of an aromatase inhibitor (anastrozole or letrozole) plus a CDK4/6 inhibitor in the first-line treatment of HR-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer patients whose tumors harbor ESR1 mutations.

Camizestrant is an oral, selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD), an estrogen receptor (ER) antagonist drug candidate that has demonstrated first-line therapeutic benefit when combined with a CDK4/6 inhibitor.

An interim analysis of SERENA-6 demonstrated a significant delay in disease progression in high-risk patients. Final data will be presented in a plenary presentation at ASCO. The study has been hailed as paving the way for a paradigm shift in the treatment of HR+/HER2- breast cancer, offering the potential for a novel approach to alter treatment strategies before the development of CDK4/6 inhibitor resistance.

In addition, another one-day plenary session will present results from the MATTERHORN phase 3 trial of the immuno-oncology drug Imfinzi in gastric cancer. The MATTERHORN phase 3 study compared Imfinzi plus Fluorouracil, Leucovorin, Oxaliplatin, and Docetaxel (FLOT) vs. chemotherapy alone before and after surgery in patients with operable stage 2-4A gastric and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer. The interim analysis showed that the combination of Imfinzi and FLOT improved event-free survival (EFS) compared to the control arm.

In addition, AstraZeneca plans to expand its oncology portfolio across multiple modalities and into various conditions. Specifically, the company explained that it is conducting clinical and research activities in the following areas: obesity and metabolic disease management; antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and radiopharmaceuticals; cell therapies and T cell engagers; and gene therapy and gene editing.