Sacituzumab govitecan
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An antibody that homes in on Trop-2, a marker found on many tumor cells, delivering a potent chemotherapy drug directly into — and around — those cells to kill them, used against advanced triple-negative and HR-positive breast cancer.
How it works
This drug is two parts fused together: an antibody that recognizes a marker called Trop-2 on the surface of cancer cells, and a potent chemotherapy chemical clipped onto it by a breakable link. When the antibody finds a Trop-2-marked cell, the whole package gets pulled inside, and the link breaks apart to release the chemotherapy exactly there. But the link isn't perfectly tight — some of the released chemotherapy also leaks out and drifts into neighboring cancer cells nearby, even ones that don't carry the Trop-2 marker themselves. Once inside a cell, the chemotherapy jams a protein the cell needs to unwind its own DNA correctly, causing damage the cell can't fix and ultimately killing it.
What it’s used for
Used for advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer — as a first treatment option for patients who can't take immunotherapy, alongside the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab for patients whose tumors show a certain PD-L1 marker, or later on after other treatments have already been tried. It's also used for advanced hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer in patients who've already gone through hormone therapy and at least two other treatments.
- Mechanism
- Trop-2-targeted antibody-drug conjugate
- Drug class
- Antibody-drug conjugate
- Therapeutic area
- Oncology