The recent resurgence in NCE approval numbers continued in 2013, after several years in the doldrums. And, once again, treatments for various forms of cancer dominated the list of new drugs given a positive opinion by the European Medicines Agency’s committee for medicinal products for human use, or CHMP. And the list of new cancer drugs was itself dominated by new receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors.
Many of these are implicated in cancer pathways, and their innate drugability has led to much attention from pharma researchers. New tyrosine kinase inhibitors in 2013 include Boehringer Ingelheim’s afatinib (Giotrif). Approved for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer who have not previously been given tyrosine kinase inhibitors against EGFR, it covalently binds to dimers of several ErbB tyrosine kinases, including EGFR, HER2, ErbB3 and ErbB4, blocking their signalling processes.
Not yet a Subscriber?
This is a small extract of the full article which is available ONLY to premium content subscribers. Click below to get premium content on Manufacturing Chemist.
Subscribe now Already a subscriber? Sign in here.