Traders work at the post where AstraZeneca is traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., October 4, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

LONDON (Reuters) - AstraZeneca’s immunotherapy drug Imfinzi has been approved in Europe for use in lung cancer patients with inoperable disease that had advanced locally but not spread widely around the body, the drugmaker said on Monday.

The green light from the European Commission had been expected following a positive recommendation from experts at the European Medicines Agency in July.

The European approval is for patients whose tumors express a biomarker known as PD-L1 on 1 percent or more of tumor cells and whose disease has not progressed following platinum-based chemotherapy and radiation therapy.