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Pembrolizumab Approved For Advanced Melanoma
Following a breakthrough therapy designation, pembrolizumab was included in FDA's accelerated approval program to allow early patient access.
with advanced or unresectable melanoma who are no longer responding to other drugs.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today granted accelerated approval to Keytruda (pembrolizumab) for treatment of patients
Melanoma, which accounts for approximately 5 percent of all new cancers in the United States, occurs when cancer cells form in skin cells that make the pigment responsible for color in the skin. According to the National Cancer Institute, an estimated 76,100 Americans will be diagnosed with melanoma and 9,710 will die from the disease this year.
Keytruda is the first approved drug that blocks a cellular pathway known as PD-1, which restricts the body’s immune system from attacking melanoma cells.
Keytruda is intended for use following treatment with ipilimumab, a type of immunotherapy. For melanoma patients whose tumors express a gene mutation called BRAF V600, Keytruda is intended for use after treatment with ipilimumab and a BRAF inhibitor, a therapy that blocks activity of BRAF gene mutations.
Read the complete FDA release: http://1.usa.gov/1u4iv5J
Oncology Onward: A Conversation With Penn Medicine's Dr Justin Bekelman
December 19th 2023Justin Bekelman, MD, director of the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation, sat with our hosts Emeline Aviki, MD, MBA, and Stephen Schleicher, MD, MBA, for our final episode of 2023 to discuss the importance of collaboration between academic medicine and community oncology and testing innovative cancer care delivery in these settings.
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Trastuzumab Deruxtecan Receives FDA Approval for HER2-Positive Solid Tumors
April 5th 2024FDA granted accelerated approval to trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki for adult patients with unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive solid tumors who received prior systemic treatment and have no satisfactory alternative treatment options.
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