Breast Cancer Therapy Tukysa Proves Successful In Late-Stage Trials

(CTN News) – In a late-stage study involving a subset of breast cancer patients, Seagen’s therapy, Tukysa, was able to achieve its main goal, boosting the prospects of the company, which is in the process of being acquired by Pfizer.

Seagen, a manufacturer of targeted therapies, was acquired by Pfizer for $43 billion in March. The deal is designed to help Pfizer cope with a steep drop in COVID-19 sales and generic competition for some top-selling drugs that will come on the market in the near future.

In combination with Roche’s Kadcyla, Tuksya was able to extend the length of time that patients with a particular type of breast cancer lived without their disease getting worse.

This drug, Kadcyla, belongs to a class of drugs known as antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) that have been described as “guided-missile” cancer drugs. As a result, the use of these drugs in the treatment of breast cancer patients has increased over the past few years.

The Roche drug is competing with Daiichi Sankyo’s Enhertu drug and AstraZeneca’s Enhertu drug, both developed by Daiichi Sankyo.

Known chemically as tucatinib, Tukysa is already approved by the FDA in combination with Roche’s Herceptin and Xeloda chemotherapy to treat patients whose cancer has worsened or spread in spite of attempts at treatment in the past.

As part of the current study, the drug was being tested on patients with a form of breast cancer called HER2 positive, which accounts for 15% to 20% of all breast cancers in the United States.

There are many factors that contribute to the growth and spread of breast cancer, including the HER2 protein.

In the United States, according to the latest government data, breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer among women.

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