A breast cancer drug developed by AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo has scored a new indication for another type of cancer.
The companies recently announced that Enhertu has now been given the green light to treat patients with HER2-positive advanced gastric cancer. The treatment, an antibody drug conjugate (ADC) which has already won approval for patients with unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer, was granted Priority Review by the FDA for the new indication.
AstraZeneca struck a deal worth about $7 billion with Daiichi to develop Enhertu and now owes the company $115 million for the milestone of winning the new approval. According to AstraZeneca, more than 27,000 patients are diagnosed in the U.S. each year with gastric cancer and about one in five of those patients have the HER2 biomarker.
The HER2 biomarker is also found on several types of other cancers. Enhertu is currently being trialed in combination with other drugs and as a stand-alone treatment for other breast cancer indications, as well as for lung cancer, rare tumors and more.
Read the full Reuters report.
