Bayer Korea said it has confirmed the clinical efficacy and tolerability of Stivarga (ingredient: regorafenib), an oral liver cancer drug, as the second-line treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma in a local study with real-world data.

Bayer Korea’s liver cancer treatment Stivarga (Credit: Bayer Korea)

The company conducted the multi-center and retroactive real-world test in 39 Korean patients with hepatocellular carcinoma whose disease progressed after the first-line treatment with Nexavar (sorafenib).

The drugmaker revealed the results of the study at the Asian session of the European Oncology Society (ESMO) in Singapore on Saturday.

The research showed that 51 percent of the Korean patients treated with Stivarga after Nexavar had two years of overall survival (OS), which was generally consistent with the company’s previous global RESORCE trial.

In other words, the local study’s data was similar to that of RESORCE, which took place in 21 countries for 573 patients. In the RESORCE study, the median of OS of patients treated with Stivarga in the second-line treatment was 26 months.

In the latest study, 51.5 percent of the patients showed an overall survival rate at two years, and the median of time-to-progression (TTP) was 10.2 months.

“Stivarga showed consistency in Korean patients’ data and existing data from the global research in the real-world environment,” said Yoo Chang-hoon, a professor at oncology department of Asan Medical Center, who led the local study. “We confirmed that a consecutive treatment using Nexavar and Stivarga could offer a survival benefit for Korean patients with hepatocellular cancer.”

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