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In June 2022 we reported that favourable results  from a trial of a new cancer drug, Enhertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan), had been presented at this year’s meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and had been published in the “New England Journal of Medicine”.  Enhertu is a specifically engineered HER-2-directed antibody drug conjugate which has been developed by AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo.  Of its components trastuzumab is a targeted therapy drug and deruxtecan is a chemotherapy drug and they are designed to treat HER2-positive breast cancer.  Enhertu will be offered to those with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer whose cancer  has not responded to other treatments and cannot be removed by surgery.  It is given by intravenous injection every three weeks and works by binding to the HER2 protein on the surface of cancer cells before delivering a dose of chemotherapy directly to the tumour.

NICE now recommends the use of Enhertu with a managed access arrangement so that people can have the treatment while trials continue to find more evidence about its cost effectiveness.  NICE has now made positive recommendations on all of its eighteen appraisals of breast cancer medication since March 2018.