Novartis' Kisqali cuts risk of death by 19% after six years, trial data show
Editorial illustration — Press Pass USASwiss drugmaker Novartis' drug Kisqali helped extend survival for women with a form of high-risk, early-stage breast cancer, cutting their risk of death by 19% after six years, according to trial data presented Friday at the European Society for Medical Oncology congress in Madrid.
At six years, 91.9% of women who received Kisqali plus hormone therapy were alive, compared with 89.7% of those who received hormone therapy alone — a 2.1-percentage-point gap, up from 1.2 points at five years. Breast-cancer-specific survival also improved, with roughly a 30% lower risk of dying from the disease.
"The initial expectation was that it would take about 10 years of follow-up to show a survival difference," said UCLA's Dennis Slamon, the trial's lead investigator. "Turns out we're seeing a difference even sooner." The six-year NATALEE analysis followed 5,101 patients across 20 countries with stage 2 or 3 hormone-receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.
Kisqali, which works by slowing cancer cells rather than killing them outright, is already approved in the U.S. and EU for patients with stage 2 or 3 breast cancer at high risk of recurrence. Analysts expect the drug's sales to reach about $7 billion this year.
Sources: Reuters (Oct 23, 2026); CancerNetwork (Oct 23, 2026).
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