BioPharma Dive January 26, 2022
Dive Brief:
- The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday granted approval to the first drug for a rare cancer of the eye that has spread elsewhere or grown too large to be surgically removed. The drug, called Kimmtrak, was developed by the U.K.-based biotech Immunocore.
- The approval clears Kimmtrak as a treatment for uveal melanoma, a version of the aggressive skin cancer that appears in eye tissue. Less than 2,500 cases are diagnosed each year worldwide, with an estimated 400 eligible patients in the U.S.
- Though immunotherapies from Merck & Co. and Bristol Myers Squibb are sometimes used to treat the disease, neither have won formal approvals to treat melanoma in eye tissue. Kimmtrak also outperformed Merck’s drug and...