WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have approved an innovative cancer drug from Seattle Genetics Inc. to treat two rare forms of cancer that attack the lymph nodes.
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Adcetris to treat Hodgkin’s lymphoma and systemic anaplastic large-cell lymphoma.
Adcetris uses a targeted antibody to deliver the drug directly to cancerous tumor cells, sparing healthy cells.
The FDA approved the drug for patients who have already tried treating their disease with a bone-marrow transplant or multiple rounds of chemotherapy.
About 8,800 new cases of Hodgkin’s disease are expected to be diagnosed this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Adcetris is the first drug approved for the disease since 1977. The FDA approved the drug under an accelerated, six-month system reserved for therapies that show promising early results.
In a study of 102 patients with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, 73 percent of patients taking the drug saw their tumors shrink or disappear completely.
The approval for large-cell lymphoma was based on a 58-patient study in which 86 percent of patients responded to the drug for more than one year, on average.
