NHS lung cancer patients will be the first in Europe to receive a “ground-breaking” new medicine which can stop the growth of tumours.
The drug sotorasib, also known by the brand name Lumakras, will be fast-tracked to NHS patients after it was proven in clinical trials that it can stop lung cancer growing for six months or more.
The drug targets the mutation on the KRAS gene, found in a quarter of all tumours, which has become known as the “Death Star” mutation because of its spherical appearance and impenetrable nature.
About 600 lung cancer patients will be given the drug initially in England over the next few weeks after an early access deal was struck with the manufacturer Amgen UK.
Sotorasib, taken as a tablet, binds with the KRAS G12C mutation – which NHS researchers have spent 40 years trying to target – and makes it inactive, resulting in cell division and cancer growth stopped.
The treatment could cause a major breakthrough in battling other types of cancers, such as pancreatic and colorectal.
Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said: “The UK is leading the world in rolling out new life-saving treatments so patients can access them as early as possible.
“This ground-breaking new drug which stops lung tumours growing will make a difference to people across England and boosts our efforts to get people the treatment they need.”
Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician Professor Charles Swanton said the drug is “one of the most exciting breakthroughs in lung cancer treatment in 20 years” – as it tackles a cancer gene that had been “previously un-targetable” with other treatment.
NHS England, NHS Improvement, and Amgen have reached a national agreement to allow early access to the drug for eligible lung cancer patients in England while National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) completes its ongoing appraisal.
This comes after sotorasib was approved by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
In May, the drug was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The FDA website states a study of 124 participants found that 36 per cent of them responded well to the drug, and that 58 per cent of those particpants had “duration of response” of six months or longer.
The participants all had locally advanced or metastatic KRAS G12C-mutated lung cancer with disease progression after receiving immunotherapy drugs, such as an immune checkpoint inhibitor, and/or platinum-based chemotherapy.
NHS England has also secured several other drug deals including a cholesterol lowering jab expected to prevent around 55,000 heart attacks in the next three years, and Osimertinib, another lung cancer drug that aims to reduce the chance of the cancer returning.
