At long last, Roche's anti-PD-L1 Tecentriq was approved on Dec. 6 by the US FDA for use with the company's VEGF inhibitor Avastin and chemotherapy for first-line, metastatic non-squamous, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), though patients with EGFR and ALK mutations were excluded, eliminating an expected labeling advantage.
Approval was supported by the results of the Phase III IMpower150 study, one of eight trials that are part of the pivotal NSCLC program testing Tecentriq