The Swiss voice in the world since 1935

Swiss giant Roche given green light for lung cancer drug in Canada

Roche: Canadian green light for Alecensaro drug
Roche: Canadian green light for Alecensaro drug Keystone-SDA

Roche has been granted marketing authorisation for its drug Alecensaro by Health Canada. Alecensaro is an adjunct therapy for patients with early-stage ALK-positive lung cancer.

Want to read our weekly top stories? Subscribe here.

Health Canada, the Canadian regulatory authority for therapeutic products, issued the authorisation on June 27 citing an “urgent unmet need”, as stated in a press release published on Tuesday.

More

Data from the phase III Alina study shows that Alecensaro (alectinib) reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 76% compared to chemotherapy alone in patients with early-stage ALK-positive lung cancer who had undergone tumour removal. Normally, approximately half of early-stage patients experience disease relapse following tumour surgery.

Lung cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer-related death worldwide. Approximately one in 15 women and one in 14 men in Canada will develop this type of cancer in their lifetime, Roche pointed out.

Translated from French by DeepL/sp

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Daily news

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Daily

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

Record-breaking Bocion sold at Basel auction for $270,250

More

François Bocion painting fetches record at Swiss auction

This content was published on The oil painting La chasse aux grèbes by Lausanne artist François Bocion (1828-1890) fetched a record CHF270,250 ($315,530) at an auction in Basel in early April, the highest price ever paid for one of his works.

Read more: François Bocion painting fetches record at Swiss auction
House price rises accelerate

More

Swiss property prices continue to climb

This content was published on The prices of owner-occupied properties continued to rise in the first three months of 2025. But large regional disparities remain.

Read more: Swiss property prices continue to climb
The storm from the USA continues to sweep through the Swiss stock market

More

US storm continues to sweep through Swiss stock market

This content was published on The Swiss stock market continued to trade in the red mid-afternoon on Monday, following in the wake of the world's stock markets, which fell heavily as a result of the trade war launched by Donald Trump.

Read more: US storm continues to sweep through Swiss stock market
Swiss vote on e-ID likely

More

Swiss likely to vote on e-ID

This content was published on The referendum committee announced in Bern on Monday that it had collected more than 60,000 signatures against the e-ID project. The initials still need to be approved.

Read more: Swiss likely to vote on e-ID

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR