Bayer has announced that the European Commission has granted conditional marketing authorisation in the European Union (EU) for a “revolutionary” new class of cancer drug that can treat a wide range of tumours.
Tumour-agnostic drugs do not care where the cancer is growing in the body as long as it has a specific genetic abnormality inside. UK doctors testing the drugs said they were “a really exciting thing”. They said the approach had the potential to cure more patients and cut side-effects.
The drug that has been approved is called larotrectinib and will be marketed as Vitrakvi®.
Dr Julia Chisholm, Consultant in Paediatric and Adolescent Oncology at The Royal Marsden Hospital, commented: “Larotrectinib’s EMA licencing marks another step towards treating cancers based on tumour genetics rather than site of origin in the body. Treatment with larotrectinib, which is designed specifically for the NTRK fusion oncogenic driver, can deliver clinically meaningful responses in patients with cancers which otherwise remain challenging to treat. We are delighted that clinicians managing such patients will now have a medicine licenced to specifically treat tumours with an NTRK gene fusion.”
