FDA approves 1st immunotherapy drug to treat breast cancer

By: Linda A. Johnson, The Associated Press Posted:

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first immunotherapy drug for breast cancer.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/03/2019 (2767 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first immunotherapy drug for breast cancer.

Swiss drugmaker Roche’s Tecentriq was OK’d Friday for treating advanced triple-negative breast cancer, which accounts for about 15 per cent of cases. It’s to be given with chemotherapy, the standard treatment.

Mount Sinai breast cancer specialist Dr. Amy Tiersten in New York called it “tremendously exciting news.”

Approved for two other cancers, Tecentriq works by boosting the immune system’s ability to spot and kill cancer cells.

In a study of 900 women, the benefits were modest. Those who received Tecentriq plus chemo went two months longer on average without their cancer worsening compared with those on chemo alone. The combo caused nerve pain, nausea and other side effects.

Tecentriq costs about $13,400 per month.

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Letters, Oct. 3

7 minute read Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

A morning in the life …

My very first lesson does not start when I walk into that lecture hall, oh no — it starts long before. It begins when I walk to my car, check the estimated arrival time to the University of Manitoba and hope that Winnipeg traffic agrees with it.

A drive that appears completely manageable changes almost immediately when I’m greeted by a tsunami of orange pylons and a line of cars that appears to go on forever. Traffic moves by the inch, lanes magically disappear and the detour I took yesterday now has a detour of its own. These factors make me do a calculation that I have become all too familiar with. How late can I arrive and still find parking, run to my class across campus and get to class with enough time left to make it worth it?

I have grown used to people saying, “Why not just leave earlier?” I do. But when I’m already leaving for my 8:30 a.m. class at 7 a.m., there’s only so much I can do. This drive that some would think is relaxing is one that feels like an assignment that I didn’t know I had to complete and is due at 8:30 a.m.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS Kinson Key Games co-founder Dennis Northcott displays his company’s Galactic Cruise board game in his Winnipeg home. The game has sold some 50,000 copies and nabbed several awards.

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The Winnipeg entrepreneur is the co-designer of Galactic Cruise, a board game published last year by Kinson Key Games LLC, the business he co-founded. Since its release, Galactic Cruise has been translated into 11 languages and sold around 50,000 copies worldwide.

It’s also one of three finalists for this year’s Deutsche Spiele Preis, a prestigious community-voted board game award. Northcott will travel to Essen, Germany, later this month, where the winner will be announced at Spiel Essen, an annual board game trade fair.

“It’s been amazing,” Northcott said of the response to Galactic Cruise during an interview in his Island Lakes neighbourhood home earlier this week. “The sales have been great, but it’s also been amazing in terms of people giving their reviews.”

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