Gastrointestinal Cancer

Study finds that glecaprevir/pibrentasvir pan-genotypic efficacy for hepatitis C virus is achieved regardless of whether patients are concurrently receiving gastric acid-reducing drugs.

The FDA approved trifluridine/tipiracil (Lonsurf, Taiho Oncology), also known as TAS-102, as a treatment for certain adult patients with metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.

The drug is indicated for those patients who were previously treated with at least 2 prior lines of chemotherapy that included a fluoropyrimidine, a platinum, either a taxane or irinotecan, and if appropriate, HER2/neu-targeted therapy.

Officials with the FDA approved Samsung Bioepis’ Ontruzant (trastuzumab-dttb), a biosimilar trastuzumab referencing Herceptin, for the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer and HER2 overexpressing gastric cancer.

The addition of ramucirumab did not improve overall survival in patients with HER2-negative gastric cancer.

The FDA has approved trastuzumab-dkst (Ogivri, Mylan GmbH) as a biosimilar to trastuzumab (Herceptin, Genentech), the first biosimilar for the treatment of certain breast and stomach cancers.