A drug approved for sarcoma treatment after 40 years

NOTE: According to Lilly and Company in April 2019, the antagonist olaratumab (Lartruvo) was withdrawn from the market for the treatment of patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma because of disappointing findings in the phase III ANNOUNCE trial. Below is the article about this drug receiving accelerated FDA approval in 2016.

Sarcomas are rare tumors that develop from the body’s soft tissues, such as muscles, fat, tendons and blood vessels. Soft tissue sarcomas have many subtypes, few treatment options, and treatment results are often not as encouraging as desired. For this reason, an intensive search for new and effective drugs for the treatment of sarcomas has been continuing for a long time. On 19 October, FDA approval was granted to the drug Olaratumab (Lartruvo), which attracted our attention as the first drug approved for the first-line (initial) treatment of this disease after 40 years. We wanted to share this important development with you.

Olaratumab is a monoclonal antibody with a human IgG1 structure and is a drug designed to target Platelet-Derived Growth Factor Receptor-alpha (PDGFRα). Abnormal expression (overexpression) of this PDGFRα is one of the mechanisms detected at high levels on tumor cells and the tissues surrounding the tumor and shown to mediate tumor development.

Olaratumab, radiotherapy or surgery has been approved for use together with the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin in the treatment of soft tissue sarcomas (STS) that cannot be treated with these methods.

The effectiveness of Olaratumab was evaluated in patients from 25 different subtypes, totaling 133 patients with STS, in the Phase-3 ANNOUNCE study. The most striking result of the study was this: median survival was 26,5 months in the patient group receiving olaratumab together with doxorubicin, whereas this period was found to be 14,7 months in the group receiving doxorubicin alone. In other words, adding olaratumab to doxorubicin increased survival by 11,8 months.

Approval of a new and effective drug for initial treatment is very promising in this group of diseases, in which treatment options are limited. If the drug receives approval for use in our country, further information will also be provided on our website.