New Drug Approved for Metastatic Breast Cancer

The US Food and Drug Administration has granted accelerated approval to Ibrance (palbociclib) to treat advanced (metastatic) breast cancer.

Ibrance works by inhibiting molecules, known as cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) 4 and 6, involved in promoting the growth of cancer cells. Ibrance is intended for postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative metastatic breast cancer who have not yet received an endocrine-based therapy.

Ibrance is to be used in combination with letrozole, another FDA-approved product used to treat certain kinds of breast cancer in postmenopausal women.

“The addition of palbociclib to letrozole provides a novel treatment option to women diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer,” said Richard Pazdur, M.D., director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “The FDA is committed to expediting marketing approval of cancer drugs through our accelerated approval regulations.”

The FDA granted Ibrance breakthrough therapy designation and priority review, the latter of which provides for an expedited review of drugs intended to provide a significant improvement in safety or effectiveness in the treatment of a serious condition or meet an unmet medical need. Ibrance is being approved more than two months ahead of the prescription drug user fee goal date of April 13, 2015, the date when the agency was scheduled to complete its review of the application.

Ibrance is being approved under the FDA’s accelerated approval program, which allows approval of a drug to treat a serious or life-threatening disease based on clinical data showing the drug has an effect on a surrogate endpoint reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit to patients. This program provides earlier patient access to promising new drugs while the company conducts confirmatory clinical trials.

The drug’s efficacy was demonstrated in 165 postmenopausal women with ER-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer who had not received previous treatment for advanced disease. Clinical study participants were randomly assigned to receive Ibrance in combination with letrozole or letrozole alone. Participants treated with Ibrance plus letrozole lived about 20.2 months without their disease progressing (progression-free survival), compared to about 10.2 months seen in participants receiving only letrozole.

The FDA offered no information on overall survival because such information was unavailable.

Source: FDA

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