The experimental antibody-based drug amivantamab has shown an ability to significantly shrink tumors—and in some cases eradicate them entirely—in patients with advanced cancers that had stopped responding to standard therapy. The Guardian reports.
In an international trial conducted across 11 countries, 102 patients with head and neck cancer received the drug. In 43 of them, tumors shrank markedly or disappeared altogether within weeks of treatment beginning. Comparable results were also recorded in patients with lung cancer.
“This is an unprecedentedly strong response in patients whose disease had become resistant to both chemotherapy and immunotherapy. For this group of patients, treatment options are extremely limited, so seeing such a pronounced benefit is highly remarkable,” said Kevin Harrington, a professor at the Institute of Cancer Research in London.
Amivantamab is notable because it acts on tumors not linked to the human papillomavirus. Such cancers are generally considered harder to treat.
The drug has already been approved in the United States and the EU since 2021, but researchers continue to study its possible use in different types of cancer.