According to an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, two new studies suggest "that EGFR mutations represent favorable prognostic markers of survival and are predictive of tumor shrinkage, but the evidence that they can predict a differential effect of tyrosine kinase inhibitors on survival is incomplete."
"If approved by the FDA, the DxS TheraScreen: K-RAS Mutation Kit would become a companion diagnostic for use with Erbitux in metastatic colorectal cancer to determine which patients have wild-type KRAS status in the US," DxS said this week.
AstraZeneca is working with DxS to commercialize a EGFR mutation test kit in Europe to identify the patient population most likely to benefit from treatment with non-small cell lung cancer drug Iressa. The company has announced no such plans in the US, where the FDA has restricted any new NSCLC patients from receiving the drug.
Reuters reports that France is to recommend that people under 55 who received one dose of AstraZeneca's SARS-CoV-2 vaccine receive a different vaccine for their second dose.
