Roche launches drug for advanced ovarian cancer

MANILA, Philippines - Pharmaceutical company Roche recently launched an important milestone making its targeted therapy bevacizumab available for a disease where few treatment advances have been seen in over two decades.

The Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of bevacizumab in combination with standard chemotherapy (carboplatin and paclitaxel) as a front-line treatment for women with advanced ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is the most deadly of the gynaecological cancers and approximately 140,000 women die from the disease each year.

It is the second leading cause of death from gynaecologic cancer in the Philippines and the country’s seventh most common cause of cancer mortality in women.

In 2010, there were an estimated 2,165 new diagnoses and an estimated 1,016 deaths from ovarian cancer in the Philippines. The incidence rate rises steeply starting at age 40 and continues to increase with age.

The Society of Gynecologic Oncologists of the Philippines (SGOP) welcomed the news and the results of clinical trials supporting the use of bevacizumab as first-line treatment for ovarian cancer.

In a setting with few advances in the last decades, bevacizumab has demonstrated in two phase III studies (GOG 0218 and ICON 7) that women who received the combination of bevacizumab and chemotherapy and then continued on bevacizumab alone, lived significantly longer without their disease getting worse (progression-free survival) compared to those who received chemotherapy alone.

“Three major clinical trials have shown that standard chemotherapy plus bevacizumab significantly improves the time women with ovarian cancer live without the disease getting worse compared to those on standard chemotherapy alone,” said Dr. Efren Domingo, past president of SGOP and chief of the Section of Gynecologic Oncology of St. Luke’s Medical Center Global City.

“The evidence from these clinical trials support the use of bevacizumab combined with standard chemotherapy as a treatment option for our patients with ovarian cancer who do not respond to standard chemotherapy alone. It is great news for us and for women who have ovarian cancer where few treatment options are available,” said SGOP president Dr. Gil Gonzalez.

Domingo and Gonzales spoke during a scientific forum entitled “The Shift in Ovarian Cancer Treatment” organized by Roche in cooperation with SGOP recently at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Makati City. SGOP members from across the country attended the forum