In the battle against cancer, ?future progress depends on personalisation of healthcare? says AstraZeneca Chief Executive

In the battle against cancer, ‘future progress depends on personalisation of healthcare’ says AstraZeneca Chief Executive IRESSA™ (gefitinib): leading the way in AstraZeneca’s commitment to personalised healthcare

Cleveland, 5 October,  – AstraZeneca’s Chief Executive David Brennan has delivered a keynote speech in the US in which he discussed the company’s commitment to future innovations in healthcare, citing recent advances in the oncology portfolio, specifically IRESSA™ (gefitinib), as a key example in progress towards better, more targeted patient outcomes.

Speaking today at the Cleveland Clinic Innovation Summit in the US, David Brennan has told the story of IRESSA to an audience of 900 healthcare stakeholders, to illustrate the determined efforts of the company in the development of this drug despite early setbacks.

“President Obama has called for this nation to find a cure for cancer. I applaud him for that but we need to recognise that we are looking at many cures rather than a single cure,” said David Brennan in today’s speech. “The solutions may emerge slowly through a wide diversity of treatments rather than in one dramatic Eureka moment,” he continued.

David Brennan highlighted the company’s commitment to personalised medicine with IRESSA, saying: “I am delighted that our determination not to give up with IRESSA is now helping many patients around the globe and we are committed to sharing the data that led to the European Commission’s marketing authorisation of IRESSA for the treatment of adults with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with activating mutations of the EGFR-TK (epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase), with other regulatory authorities, including the FDA.”

He showed that the development of IRESSA has played a key role in furthering understanding of personalised treatment in NSCLC and that this has set the agenda for future drug developments across therapy areas within AstraZeneca: “What we now know is that lung cancer is not just one disease, but is caused by many different disease mechanisms, involving different biological pathways. This has led to our increasing understanding that we need to target the disease with different treatments, depending on the type of lung cancer it is. The future lies not simply in testing medicines amongst the whole population but in identifying specific molecular subsets and trialling medicines among those groups.”

“I believe the potential exists to make significant advances against cancer and other killer diseases and the big lesson is that future progress depends in large part on targeted therapies, in other words on personalisation of healthcare,” continued David Brennan.

This event also presented the opportunity to update the audience on the portfolio of products the company has in development. David Brennan concluded: “We are looking to the future and are investing in the discovery and development of potential new treatments in the areas of brain, breast and ovarian cancer, as well as continuing our commitment to lung cancer, which will add to AstraZeneca’s already strong heritage in world leading treatments for cancer. At least 1 in 10 projects in clinical development are adopting a personalised approach this year and in oncology this figure rises to over half.”

AstraZeneca has a strong heritage in oncology with several well-established brands that are part of the family of hormonal cancer drugs, such as Nolvadex™ (tamoxifen), Arimidex™ (anastrazole) and Faslodex™ (fulvestrant) in breast cancer and Casodex™ (bicalutamide) and Zoladex™ (gosrelin) in prostate cancer. -ends- About AstraZeneca AstraZeneca is a major international healthcare business engaged in the research, development, manufacturing and marketing of meaningful prescription medicines and supplier for healthcare services. AstraZeneca is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies with healthcare sales of US$ 31.6 billion and is a leader in gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, neuroscience, respiratory, oncology and infectious disease medicines. For more information about AstraZeneca, please visit: www.astrazeneca.com<http://www.astrazeneca.com/>

For further information, please contact: David Ginivan AstraZeneca Tel: +44 (0) 1625 516 973 Mobile: +44 (0) 7775 412 619 David.ginivan@astrazeneca.com

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