Roche has launched PHESGO (PH-Perjeta + Herceptin; ES-Easy; GO- Go) — a fixed dose combination of two monoclonal antibodies in oncology for the treatment of HER-2 positive breast cancer — in India today, according to a company statement.
The statement said that PHESGO is a fixed-dose combination of two monoclonal antibodies – Perjeta (pertuzumab) and Herceptin (trastuzumab) with hyaluronidase, administered by subcutaneous (under the skin) injection in combination with intravenous (IV) chemotherapy, for the treatment of early and metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. This is the first time that Roche has combined two monoclonal antibodies that can be administered by a single SC injection.
The dose is administered as a single injection just under the skin in the thigh and takes a few minutes compared to hours with IV formulations for each round of treatment, thus reducing chair time for patients by 90 per cent, the statement added.
It also informed that PHESGO was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2020 during the peak of the COVID pandemic, by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in December 2020, and has been recognised in the NCCN treatment guidelines. In India, it was approved by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) in October 2021 and the import license was granted in January 2022.
As per the company’s phase-II PHranceSCa study1, 85 per cent of people receiving treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer preferred treatment with PHESGO compared to IV administration due to less time in the clinic and more comfortable treatment administration.