Oral treatment for kidney cancer now in SL
View(s):Sri Lanka is the latest country to benefit from a once-daily, oral medication treating advanced renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer that presents nine out of 10 times. Votrient, featuring active ingredient pazopanob, was first appoved by the US-based Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October 2009, and is available in more than 80 countries to date.
Now, with it being already registered with the Cosmetics, Devices and Drugs Regulatory Authority of Sri Lanka, by patent holder and manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), this drug is also claimed to be the first targeted therapy to be approved for prescription by local physicians as an oral treatment option, according to a GSK media release.
The drug’s launch announcement also noted that this was an “anti-cancer drug of a type called ‘protein kinase inhibitors,’ Votrient works by preventing the activity of proteins that are involved in the growth and spread of cancer cells. It is intended as the first-line treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma and for patients who have received prior cytokine therapy for advanced diseases. In a pivotal trial, progression-free survival was found to be significantly prolonged with Votrient vs. placebo (9.2 months vs. 4.2 months, p < 0.0001) in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma. Votrient is well tolerated and the majority of the side effects seen in the trial were mild to moderate and clinically manageable, with a quality of life comparable to the placebo group”.
In other words, “Votrient has been proven to significantly delay the progression of advanced renal cell carcinoma while maintaining patients’ quality of life”, according to Dr. Hector Weerasinghe, Director of Medical, Regulatory and Government Affairs at GSK Pharmaceuticals Sri Lanka. Dr. Weerasinghe is a former director of the Colombo National Hospital.
(JH)