*December 2021*
Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited (hereafter, Daiichi Sankyo) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) to patritumab deruxtecan (HER3-DXd), a potential first-in-class HER3 directed antibody drug conjugate (ADC), for the treatment of patients with metastatic or locally advanced EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with disease progression on or after treatment with a third-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) and platinum-based therapies.
Lung cancer is the second most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, with 80% to 85% classified as NSCLC.[1],[2],[3] While the efficacy of targeted therapy with EGFR TKIs is well-established in the treatment of advanced EGFR-mutated NSCLC, which comprises approximately 30% of patients, the development of a broad range of resistance mechanisms commonly leads to disease progression.[4],[5],[6] After failure of an EGFR TKI, platinum-based chemotherapy has limited efficacy with progression-free survival (PFS) of approximately 4.4 to 6.4 months.[7] Subsequent salvage therapies after EGFR TKI and platinum-based chemotherapy have PFS of 2.8 to 3.2 months.[8]
The U.S. FDA’s BTD is designed to accelerate the development and regulatory review of potential new medicines that are intended to treat a serious condition and address a significant unmet medical need. The new medicine needs to have shown encouraging preliminary clinical results that demonstrate substantial improvement on a clinically significant endpoint over available medicines.
The FDA granted the BTD based on data from the dose escalation portion and two expansion cohorts of a three-cohort phase 1 study of patritumab deruxtecan (cohorts 1 and 3a). Extended follow-up data from the dose escalation portion and dose expansion cohort 1 of the study were recently presented at the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting and published in Cancer Discovery. This is the first BTD for patritumab deruxtecan and the seventh BTD across Daiichi Sankyo’s oncology portfolio.
“The Breakthrough Therapy Designation for patritumab deruxtecan acknowledges the need for new treatment approaches to overcome resistance and improve survival in patients with metastatic TKI-resistant, EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer,” said Ken Takeshita, MD, Global Head, R&D, Daiichi Sankyo. “We are proud that the FDA has once again recognized our innovative science and technology and we look forward to bringing this potential first-in-class HER3 directed antibody drug conjugate to patients with this specific type of lung cancer as quickly as possible.” Read more.
