Exciting news for the world. Recently, Genentech announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Kadcyla™ (ado-trastuzumab emtansine or T-DM1) for the treatment of people with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 235,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and 40,000 will die from the disease in 2013.
The news of this new FDA approved drug is especially important to me given 3 generations of women in my family have been diagnosed with breast cancer. My great grandmother, grandma and aunt, all from my dad's side, were diagnosed with breast cancer with myself, at the age of 26, being the next woman down the line.
I had only hoped that there would be more treatments available to help fight breast cancer in my life time.
An antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) is a new kind of targeted cancer medicine that can attach to certain types of cancer cells and deliver chemotherapy directly to them. Kadcyla is the first FDA-approved ADC for treating HER2-positive mBC, an aggressive form of the disease.
"We currently have more than 25 antibody-drug conjugates in our pipeline and hope this promising approach will help us deliver more medicines to fight other cancers in the future, " said Hal Barron, M.D., chief medical officer and head, Global Product Development Genetech.
It gives us hope that technology in new treatments can truly change our world, shape our future and save lives.
Read more about Kadcyla from their press release.