At the recent 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS16), Cascadian Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CASC) presented a poster (Abstract #P4–21–01) on:

“Efficacy Results of a Phase 1b Study of Tucatinib (ONT–380), an Oral HER2-Specific Inhibitor, in Combination With Capecitabine and Trastuzumab in HER2+ Metastatic Breast Cancer, Including Patients with Brain Metastases.”

Tucatinib is an oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor that is highly selective for HER2.

Cascadian’s tucatinib poster at #SABCS16

We’ve seen several new treatments approved for HER2 positive breast cancers in recent years including four targeted treatments: trastuzumab, pertuzumab, lapatinib and T-DM1.

Other companies such as Puma Biotech (NASDAQ: PBYI) also have oral TKIs in development. Puma’s drug, neratinib has, however been shown to have a high incidence of grade 3+ diarrhea, raising questions about its tolerance.

At SABCS16 (Abstract P02–11–03), the company presented the interim analysis of an open-label, multicenter phase 2 trial, which explored their compound:

“Incidence and severity of diarrhea with neratinib + intensive loperamide prophylaxis in patients (pts) with HER2+ early-stage breast cancer (EBC).”

There has been a lot of interest and controversy in this space, so it’s time to take a look at the latest events in HER2+ breast cancer and consider the ramifications since there are a number of new developments that are well worth following, including neratinib (Puma Biotech) and pertuzumab (Genentech).

This is our final expert interview from SABCS – if you missed it you can catch up with the rest of the conference coverage and thought leader sentiments here.

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