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Roche breast cancer drug 'helps patients live longer', according to a new study. The study found that the drug extended patients' lives by almost 16 months. 

Patients who took the new Perjeta drug in combination with chemotherapy and Roche's older anti-cancer drug Herceptin lived a median of 56.5 months, compared to 40.8 months for people in the trial who weren't on Perjeta, Roche said in a statement.

"Adding Perjeta to treatment with Herceptin and chemotherapy resulted in the longest survival observed to date in a clinical study of people with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer," said Sandra Horning, Roche's chief medical officer and head of global product development, in the press release.

The 15.7-month longer survival time marked "a magnitude of improvement we rarely see in clinical trials in advanced cancer," she added.

The trial included more than 800 patients with previously untreated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer - a kind of cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.