Shares in Roche have dropped more than five per cent as the Swiss drug maker failed to show its promising drug candidate giredestrant against a common form of breast cancer can help newly diagnosed patients.
A phase III trial did not provide reliable evidence that the drug’s use in combination with Pfizer’s Ibrance as a first treatment slows disease progression when compared with a standard hormonal therapy plus Ibrance, Roche said in a statement on Monday.
That marked a reversal of fortunes for the oral compound.
The Roche pill in 2025 cut the risk of tumour recurrence in breast cancer patients who had received the established initial treatment in a late-stage trial, boosting Roche’s shares.
The giredestrant pill belongs to a drug class known as oral selective oestrogen receptor degraders (SERD) to fight tumours that grow in response to oestrogen, accounting for up to 80 per cent of all breast cancer cases.
The market opportunity has also attracted AstraZeneca, which is developing rival compound camizestrant.
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