Nintedanib Moves Closer to Mesothelioma Standard of Care

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the United Kingdom granted early access designation to nintedanib for the treatment of pleural mesothelioma, a major step forward for patients diagnosed with the asbestos-related cancer.
Nintedanib, marketed under the brand names Ofev and Vargatef, is a small-molecule enzyme inhibitor. In clinical trials, the drug has shown the ability to prevent mesothelioma cell growth and slow tumor spread (metastasis).
“This is potentially quite significant,” Dr. Dean Fennell, chair of thoracic medical oncology at the University of Leicester and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, told Asbestos.com. “Certainly, this drug is promising. Fantastic news.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2016 granted nintedanib an orphan drug designation for mesothelioma, encouraging its use before officially approving it.
MHRA and the FDA are moving the drug another step closer to changing the long-accepted but relatively ineffective standard-of-care treatment for unresectable pleural mesothelioma.
“This is an exciting prospect of what’s to come,” Fennell said. “The drug has shown real effectiveness.”
Nintedanib Effective in Other Cancers
Doctors in the U.K. and U.S. diagnose an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 combined cases of mesothelioma each year.
U.K. doctors have used nintedanib in combination with chemotherapy to treat certain lung cancers, but this recent designation as a “Promising Innovati...

Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - January 24, 2018 Category: Environmental Health Authors: Daniel King Tags: Dean Fennell FDA LUME-Meso clinical trial md anderson cancer center MHRA nintedanib Ofev pleural mesothelioma Promising Innovative Medicine rama balaraman UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center University of Pittsburgh Source Type: news