UK Approves Innovative Breast Cancer Treatment

A groundbreaking breast cancer treatment, capivasertib (Truqap), has been greenlit for use in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), offering new hope to over 1,000 women annually with advanced HR-positive HER2-negative breast cancer.

This incurable type of cancer has specific genetic mutations, spreading within breast tissue or to other body parts.

Capivasertib, developed by British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, is a twice-daily pill that slows or stops cancer progression by blocking an abnormal protein driving cancer cell growth.

When combined with hormone therapy fulvestrant, it increases the time before cancer worsens by approximately 4.2 months.

“This announcement is a triumph that will improve treatment for these patients with the most common type of advanced breast cancer,” says Kristian Helin, Chief Executive of the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR).

“Around half of patients with this kind of breast cancer have mutations in one or more genes, and for these patients, capivasertib can halt disease progression.”

Helen Knight, NICE’s Director of Medicines Evaluation, adds, “People with advanced breast cancer would value treatments like capivasertib, that can be given when limited options exist and because it may delay the need for chemotherapy and its associated side effects.”

The approval follows decades of research by ICR scientists and marks a significant milestone in British cancer science. With this new treatment, patients can expect a better quality of life, and in some cases, extended survival time.

According to NICE, 40,192 people were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020, with nearly 15% having advanced stages of the disease at diagnosis.