The authors would like to thank the patients who took part in the study and Dr. Marlies Langenberg, UMC Utrecht, for her contribution as a trial investigator.
Funding
This study was sponsored by AstraZeneca and is part of an alliance between AstraZeneca and Merck & Co., Inc. Article processing charges and the Open Access fee were also funded by AstraZeneca and Merck & Co., Inc. All authors had full access to all of the data in this study and take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and accuracy of the data analysis.
Medical Writing and other Editorial Assistance
Medical writing assistance was provided by Lizzie Wilkins PhD, of Mudskipper Business Ltd, funded by AstraZeneca and Merck and Co, Inc. The UK centres involved were Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres supported by Cancer Research UK and the Department of Health.
Authorship
All named authors meet the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship for this manuscript, take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, and have given final approval of the version to be published.
Disclosures
Christian Rolfo has received research grants from OncoDNA, honoraria from Mylan and speakers’ fees from MSD, Novartis and Guardant Health. Their current affiliation is University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, MD, USA. Jacques De Grève has received travel grants from AstraZeneca. Guy Jerusalem has received investigator fees to his institution from AstraZeneca and grants and personal fees from Novartis, Roche, Pfizer, Lilly, Celgene, Amgen, BMS, Puma and Daiichi Sankyo. Carsten Goessl is an employee of AstraZeneca and owns stock. Maria Learoyd is an employee of AstraZeneca and owns stock. Christopher Bailey is an employee of AstraZeneca and owns stock. Joseph Birkett has received consulting fees from AstraZeneca, their current affiliation is Crest Pharma Ltd, Surrey, UK. Stuart Spencer is an employee of Plus-Project contracted to AstraZeneca and owns shares in AstraZeneca. At the time of the study Emma Dean worked at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, the University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. Since completion of this study, Emma Dean has taken up employment with AstraZeneca and owns stock. At the time of the study, Rhoda Molife worked for The Royal Marsden and Institute of Cancer Research, Sutton, UK. Their current affiliation is MSD, London, UK. Ruth Plummer, Henk Verheul, Filip De Vos, Karin Leunen, Peter Grundtvig-Sørensen, Sylvie Rottey, Antoine Italiano, James Spicer and Luc Dirix have nothing to disclose.
Compliance with Ethics Guidelines
The institutional review boards or independent ethics committees of all investigational sites approved the protocol. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee, the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards, Good Clinical Practice, and the AstraZeneca policy on bioethics. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.