Dive Brief:
- Akynzeo (palonosetron/netupitant) has been approved by the FDA for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) within the first 24 hours of chemotherapy.
- Akynzeo combines palonosetron, which is already marketed by Eisai and was developed by Helsinn, and a new drug, netupitant.
- When these two drugs are combined in a fixed-dose formulation, they provide a higher level of relief to patients during the acute, delayed, and overall phases of CINV.
Dive Insight:
As part of offering cancer treatments, healthcare professionals also provide patients with CINV pharmacologic interventions to provide relief from nausea. Just as combination therapy has become even more important in cancer care, combination therapy in other areas is also becoming increasingly important as researchers better understand which medications target which proteins.
Combining oral palonosetron with netupitant provided a higher level of relief for patients, compared with palonosetron monotherapy. Based on clinical trial data from 1,720 patients, 98.5%, 90.4%, and 89.6% of patients treated with Akynzeo did not experience any vomiting that required rescue medication for nausea during the acute, delayed, and overall phases, respectively. Comparatively, those statistics for patients treated with palonosetron were 89.7%, 80.1%, and 76.5%, respectively.