A new drug to treat metastasized medullary thyroid cancer called Cometriq has been approved by The U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The drug is a kinase inhibitor that blocks abnormal kinase proteins involved in the development and growth of medullary cancer cells.
"Cometriq is the second drug approved to treat medullary thyroid cancer in the past two years and reflects FDA's commitment to the development and approval of drugs for treating rare diseases," said Richard Pazdur, M.D., director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research in a statement. "Prior to today's approval and the approval of Caprelsa in April 2011, patients with this rare and difficult to treat disease had limited therapeutic treatment options."
The National Cancer Institute estimates that 4 percent of thyroid cancers are medullary thyroid cancer, making it one of the rarer types of thyroid cancers. Nevertheless, 56,460 Americans were diagnosed with thyroid cancer and 1,780 died from the disease in 2012.
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