Swedish pharmaceutical company Immedica, backed by investment firms KKR & Co Inc (NYSE:KKR) and Impilo, announced on Monday that Qatar's Ministry of Public Health has approved Zepzelca (lurbinectedin) in combination with atezolizumab (Tecentriq) as a first-line maintenance treatment for adults with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC) whose disease has not progressed following induction therapy.

This approval is based on the Phase 3 IMforte trial, in which the combination reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 46% and the risk of death by 27% compared with atezolizumab maintenance therapy alone.

Median overall survival was 13.2 months for the combination regimen, versus 10.6 months for atezolizumab alone, while median progression-free survival was 5.4 months, compared with 2.1 months. The safety profile was consistent with the known profiles of both treatments.

Results of the trial were presented at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting and published in The Lancet.

Immedica holds distribution rights to Zepzelca under its strategic partnership with Spanish biopharmaceutical company PharmaMar (BME:PHM) across the Nordics, the UK and Ireland, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa.