HORSHAM, PA — The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson announced that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved AKEEGA™ (niraparib and abiraterone acetate), the first-and-only dual action tablet combining a PARP inhibitor with abiraterone acetate, given with prednisone, for the treatment of adult patients with deleterious or suspected deleterious BRCA-positive mCRPC, as detected by an FDA-approved test.1
“As a physician, identifying patients with a worse prognosis is a priority, especially those whose cancers have a BRCA mutation,” said Kim Chi, M.D.*, Medical Oncologist at BC Cancer – Vancouver and principal investigator of the Phase 3 MAGNITUDE study. “We prospectively designed the MAGNITUDE study to identify the subset of patients most likely to benefit from targeted treatment with AKEEGA and to help us understand how we can potentially achieve better health outcomes for patients.”
Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in the U.S., with an estimated 288,300 new cases and nearly 35,000 deaths expected in 2023.2 Approximately 10 to 15 percent of patients with mCRPC have BRCA gene alterations. Patients with BRCA-positive mCRPC are more likely to have aggressive disease and may experience poor outcomes and a shorter survival time.3,4,5,6,7
“The approval of AKEEGA brings an important treatment option to patients with prostate cancer as they consider their road ahead, and it also highlights the importance of genetic testing and precision medicine for this disease,” said Shelby Moneer, MS, CHES**, Vice President of Patient Programs and Education, ZERO Prostate Cancer. “All individuals diagnosed with prostate cancer should consider genetic testing, especially those from racial and ethnic minority groups who tend to have worse cancer outcomes. This is imperative to close the racial and ethnic disparities in prostate cancer health outcomes.”
The FDA approval is based on positive results from the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multi-center Phase 3 MAGNITUDE study. In BRCA-positive patients treated with the combination AKEEGA™ plus prednisone, a statistically significant 47 percent risk reduction was observed for radiographic progression-free survival (rPFS) (Hazard ratio [HR], 0.53; p=0.001). At the second interim analysis (IA2), with median follow-up at 24.8 months in the BRCA-positive subgroup, rPFS by central review demonstrated a consistent trend favoring AKEEGA™ plus prednisone, with a median rPFS of 19.5 months compared with 10.9 months for placebo and AAP (HR, 0.55 [95 percent confidence interval (CI), 0.39-0.78]). Additionally, there was an observed improvement in the secondary endpoints of time to symptomatic progression (TSP) (HR, 0.54 [95 percent CI, 0.35-0.85]) and time to initiation of cytotoxic chemotherapy (TCC) (HR, 0.56 [95 percent CI, 0.35-0.90]) for AKEEGA™ plus prednisone compared with AAP alone, supported by a trend towards improvement in overall survival (OS) (HR, 0.88 [95 percent CI, 0.58-1.34]).
The observed safety profile of the combination of AKEEGA™ plus prednisone was consistent with the known safety profile of each FDA-approved monotherapy. Of the patients in the MAGNITUDE study with a BRCA gene alteration, 41 percent who received AKEEGA™ experienced a serious adverse event (AE). The most common AEs occurring in 20 percent or more of patients who received AKEEGA™ plus prednisone versus patients who received placebo and AAP were musculoskeletal pain (44 percent vs. 42 percent, respectively), fatigue (43 percent vs. 30 percent), constipation (34 percent vs. 20 percent), hypertension (33 percent vs. 27 percent) and nausea (33 percent vs. 21 percent). Permanent discontinuation of any component of AKEEGA™ due to an adverse reaction occurred in 15 percent of patients.
“Janssen’s legacy of advancing the science of prostate cancer has contributed to the evolution of transformational treatment approaches for more than a decade,” said Kiran Patel, M.D., Vice President, Clinical Development, Solid Tumors, Janssen Research & Development, LLC. “This milestone, which marks the approval of Janssen’s third prostate cancer treatment, highlights the importance of advancing precision medicine approaches and genetic testing for the treatment of patients with BRCA-positive mCRPC.”
1 AKEEGA Prescribing Information.Horsham, PA: Janssen Biotech, Inc.
2 American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts & Figures 2023. Accessed May 11, 2023. https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cancer-facts-and-statistics/annual-cancer-facts-and-figures/2023/2023-cancer-facts-and-figures.pdf
3 Scott RJ, Mehta A, Macedo GS, Borisov PS, Kanesvaran R, El Metnawy W. Genetic testing for homologous recombination repair (HRR) in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC): challenges and solutions. Oncotarget. 2021 Aug 3;12(16):1600-1614. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.28015. PMID: 34381565; PMCID: PMC8351605. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8351605/
4 Castro E, Romero-Laorden N, Del Pozo A, et al. PROREPAIR-B: A prospective cohort study of the impact of germline DNA repair mutations on the outcomes of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2019;37(6):490-503. doi:10.1200/JCO.18.00358.
5 Cavanagh, H., & Rogers, K. M. (2015). The role of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in prostate, pancreatic and stomach cancers. Hereditary cancer in clinical practice, 13(1), 16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13053-015-0038-x
6 Messina, C., Cattrini, C., Soldato, D., et al (2020). BRCA mutations in prostate cancer: Prognostic and predictive Implications. J Oncol., 2020, 4986365. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/4986365
7 Na, R., Zheng, S. L., Han, M., et al (2017). Germline mutations in ATM and BRCA1/2 distinguish risk for lethal and indolent prostate cancer and are associated with early age at death. European Urology, 71(5), 740–747. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eururo.2016.11.033
8 Chi et al. Phase 3 MAGNITUDE study: First results of niraparib (NIRA) with abiraterone acetate and prednisone (AAP) as first-line therapy in patients (pts) with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) with and without homologous recombination repair (HRR) gene alterations. Oral presentation, 2022 ASCO GU Annual Meeting.
9 AKEEGA™ Prescribing Information. Horsham, PA: Janssen Biotech, Inc.
10 Efstathiou E, et al. Niraparib With Abiraterone Acetate and Prednisone in Patients With Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer and Homologous Recombination Repair Gene Alterations: Second Interim Analysis of MAGNITUDE. Poster presentation, 2023 ASCO GU Annual Meeting. February 16, 2023.
11 AKEEGA™ Prescribing Information. Horsham, PA: Janssen Biotech, Inc.
12 AKEEGA™ Prescribing Information. Horsham, PA: Janssen Biotech, Inc
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