The Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis said on Monday that its breast cancer drug kisqali (ribociclib) is highly effective in preventing recurrence in patients with early breast cancer.

In the new study, the company followed more than 5,100 patients from 20 countries with stage two or stage three breast cancer for a period of four years.

Researchers found that a combined treatment with kisqali and endocrine therapy (ET) lowered recurrence of breast cancer by 28.5 percent. Interestingly, the treatment continued to provide benefits even after ending the treatment.

Kisqali, developed by Novartis in collaboration with Astex Pharmaceuticals, has been widely used to treat metastatic breast cancer (MBC) across the world. It belongsto a class of drugs which help slow cancer growth by targeting two proteins cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 (CDK4/6).So far, the drug has been approved in 99 countries.

"With longer follow-up, the clinically relevant benefit of adding ribociclib to endocrine therapy continues to improve, even after the end of ribociclib treatment, for both node-positive and node-negative patients," trial investigator Peter A. Fasching, Professor of Translational Medicine, University Hospital Erlangen and Comprehensive Cancer Center Erlangen-EMN, said in a statement.

Shreeram Aradhye,President, Development and Chief Medical Officer at Novartis, explained it further. "A large number of people diagnosed with HR+/HER2- early breast cancer remain at risk of recurrence, and these results add to the growing body of evidence supporting the potential of Kisqali to reduce this risk consistently across a broad population, including patients with node-negative disease who have few options beyond ET," he said.

Awaiting FDA approval

The company said itis currently awaiting review from U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA).

Findings of the study were presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2024 held in Barcelonaon Monday.

Similar to Novartis, recentlyan experimental combo treatment of Relay Therapeutics had been found helpful in improving the length of time a breast cancer patient lived without worsening the condition.

More than 2,296,840 new cases of breast cancer were reported in 2022, according to the World Cancer Research Fund International.  About 6,70,000 people were killed by breast cancer in 2022, a report from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows.