TECENTRIQ (atezolizumab) is used for the treatment of people with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), explains Genentech in a media release. The approval that has now been granted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) follows positive results in Phase III and Phase II studies. The Roche subsidiary recently proved that patients who are treated with TECENTRIQ live a median of 13.8 months, 4.2 months longer than those treated with docetaxel chemotherapy. TECENTRIQ can now be deployed for patients who have disease progression despite chemotherapy.
The biomarker programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) was used for this study to determine the severity of the disease. TECENTRIQ also targets this protein, which could be one of the reasons for the drug’s efficacy. “TECENTRIQ is the first and only approved cancer immunotherapy designed to target the PD-L1 protein, which may play an important role in the way the medicine works“, explains Sandra Horning, chief medical officer of Genentech and Roche.
