Novartis AG’s self-proclaimed hit in the Natalee trial with the breast cancer drug Kisqali was always going to be about the details. Late-breaking results presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting suggest that the Swiss group will have to fight hard to grab share from Eli Lilly and Company and its incumbent Verzenio, and to justify an immediate expansion into new patient groups.
Not that the trial is unsuccessful, with an ASCO abstract describing a solid 25% reduction in the risk of reccurrence (HR 0.748; p=0.0014), a result that should be sufficient to expand Kisqali’s label into the lucrative adjuvant setting