Rybrevant Plus Chemotherapy May Improve PFS for Relapsed EGFR Lung Cancer

Rybrevant (amivantamab) plus chemotherapy is an effective treatment for relapsed, advanced EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer, with a significant improvement in progression-free survival, an expert said.

CURE® sat down with Dr. Sanjay Popat, professor of Thoracic Oncology at The Institute of Cancer Research and Consultant Medical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden Hospital on-site at the 2024 ESMO Congress to learn more about the potential benefits and side effects of Rybrevant plus chemotherapy.

Transcript:

The combination of [Rybrevant] plus chemotherapy for relapsed, advanced EGFR-mutant, non-small cell lung cancer progressing on [Tagrisso] is an approved treatment in Europe. It has an EMA [European Medicines Agency] label and is approved for use in Europe, and we're hoping to see the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] approval anytime soon. It's a highly effective treatment for patients with a marked improvement in progression-free survival, [meaning] the time from starting treatment to deterioration of their cancer, otherwise known as progression or death. [PFS] markedly improves with a relative 60% improvement, which is really quite important.

We do see some toxicities with the regime. It can cause problems with infusion reactions when the drug is dripped in for at least the first couple of infusions, and thereafter it settles down. Now the intravenous formulation is being reevaluated and being reformulated as a subcutaneous injection, and we've had direct randomized data between the subcutaneous injection and the intravenous formulation, demonstrating that the blood concentrations, otherwise known as the pharmacokinetic profile, is exactly the same between the two formulations, but importantly, the infusion reactions are basically abated. They don't occur anyway near the same amount of significance as they do with the intravenous version. So, we look forward to the subcutaneous version, which I think will overtake and become standard to the intravenous version.

In terms of side effects, our patients are most likely to get side effects with skin changes and nail changes, and it's important that we try and optimize the skin and nail as best as possible, and there's a variety of things that we can do to try and mitigate this, but early use of medications for the skin and nails, very much encouraged to try and reduce the side effects and ensure that patients continue to receive the drug and get the most out of it.

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