Genentech, a leading biotechnology company, recently announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration accepted the company's biologics license application for pertuzumab and granted the the breast cancer treatment drugs a priority review.
The application of the pertuzumab drug came on the heels of the Phase III Cleopatra study, which showed a 6.1-month improvement in median progression-free survival among those who were treated with the drug combined with Herceptin and docetaxel chemotherapy when compared with those who just received a combination of Herceptin and chemotherapy.
"We are pleased that the FDA has granted pertuzumab a priority review because new medicines are needed for HER2-positive breast cancer," said Hal Barron, M.D., chief medical officer and head of global product development for Genentech. "We have been researching HER2-positive breast cancer for more than 30 years, and we hope an expedited review will help us quickly bring another personalized medicine to people battling this aggressive disease."
Patients who received the pertuzumab-based treatment had a 38 percent reduction in the risk of their disease becoming worse or resulting in death, the independent review revealed.
According to the National Cancer Institute, more than 230,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011, which might send Americans to underwriters to sign them up for a life insurance policy.