DTMT Network

In what is likely to be good news for people suffering from colorectal cancer, that claim about a million lives annually across the globe, US drug maker Seagen said recently that its HER2 inhibitor drug tucatinib, marketed under the brand Tukysa, in combination with trastuzumab prevented colorectal cancer from spreading further for up to 10 months, in patients whose disease had progressed to other parts of the body during the trial.

HER2 or Human epidermal growth factor-2, which is a protein required for normal cell growth is produced in excessive amounts in 3-5% of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Seagen presented the findings of the trial, which was conducted in multiple centres across the United States and Europe in an oral session at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer on July 2, 2022, in Barcelona, Spain.

Commenting on the findings, Dr John H. Strickler, Associate Professor of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine and lead trial investigator said that people with colorectal cancer who do not respond to chemotherapy and whose cancer has spread to other parts of the body (become metastatic) receive limited clinical benefit with currently available therapies.

“With sustained responses and favourable tolerability in heavily pre-treated patients, tucatinib in combination with trastuzumab has the potential to be a new treatment option for previously treated HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer,” he added.

The average progression-free survival (where the disease did not spread further) was 8.2 months and the median overall survival was 24.1 months among the patients who were given the combination treatment, Seagen said.

At the start of the trial, cancer had spread in the liver in 64.3% of the patients who took part in the trial, while in 70.2% of these patients it had spread to the lungs, Seagen said in the statement.

These patients had received an average of three treatments before they were enrolled for the trial, the company added.

Seagen said that it has planned a supplemental New Drug Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under the Accelerated Approval Program based on these data.

It may be noted that the FDA has already approved tucatinib in combination with trastuzumab and capecitabine for the treatment of patients with advanced  metastatic or unresectable (where the tumours cannot be removed through surgeries) HER2-positive breast cancer.