Enhertu (chemical name: fam-trastuzumab-deruxtecan-nxki) is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat currently incurable HER-2-positive breast cancer and metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer that has been treated with two or more anti-HER2 therapies/medicines. About one out of every four breast cancers is HER2-positive. Doctors call Enhertu an antibody-drug conjugate targeted therapy.
The pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca claims that according to the analysis of Phase 3, its drug Enhertu reduced the risk of death or disease progression by 72% compared to existing treatment trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1). Overall, it showed a strong trend towards improved survival rate in treating the currently incurable HER-2 positive breast cancer.
Coupling Enhertu with chemotherapy was proven to be twice as effective in controlling the disease as the similarly intravenous antibody-drug TDM-1 (the current standard of care medication).In addition to this, 75% of the 500 trial patients (from around the globe) for Enhertu showed no progression in their cancer after 12 months, compared to 34.1% of these treated with TDM1. Above all, 94.1% of Enhertu patients survived 12 months of treatment, compared to 85.9% of TDM1 patients.
“These unprecedented data represent that Enhertu might become the new standard of care treatment for patients with HER-2-positive metastatic breast cancer following standard chemotherapy,” said the vice president of Oncology R&D at AstraZeneca.
ENHERTU (5.4mg/kg) is approved in Canada, the EU, Japan, the UK, and the US for the treatment of adult patients. However, the cost for Enhertu intravenous powder for injection 100 mg is around $2,479 for a supply of 1 powder for injection. Critics claim that their use is limited to a minority of people with advanced cancers, and even then only those that meet specific criteria. They don’t work for everyone and they cost a fortune. Whether it will be internationally functional or not, we will have to wait and see.
The pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca claims that according to the analysis of Phase 3, its drug Enhertu reduced the risk of death or disease progression by 72% compared to existing treatment trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1). Overall, it showed a strong trend towards improved survival rate in treating the currently incurable HER-2 positive breast cancer.
Coupling Enhertu with chemotherapy was proven to be twice as effective in controlling the disease as the similarly intravenous antibody-drug TDM-1 (the current standard of care medication).In addition to this, 75% of the 500 trial patients (from around the globe) for Enhertu showed no progression in their cancer after 12 months, compared to 34.1% of these treated with TDM1. Above all, 94.1% of Enhertu patients survived 12 months of treatment, compared to 85.9% of TDM1 patients.
“These unprecedented data represent that Enhertu might become the new standard of care treatment for patients with HER-2-positive metastatic breast cancer following standard chemotherapy,” said the vice president of Oncology R&D at AstraZeneca.
ENHERTU (5.4mg/kg) is approved in Canada, the EU, Japan, the UK, and the US for the treatment of adult patients. However, the cost for Enhertu intravenous powder for injection 100 mg is around $2,479 for a supply of 1 powder for injection. Critics claim that their use is limited to a minority of people with advanced cancers, and even then only those that meet specific criteria. They don’t work for everyone and they cost a fortune. Whether it will be internationally functional or not, we will have to wait and see.