FDA approves Clovis Oncology’s new drug for advanced ovarian cancer

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval to orphan drug Rubraca (rucaparib) to treat women with a certain type of ovarian cancer.

The FDA also approved the FoundationFocus CDxBRCA companion diagnostic for use with Rubraca, which is the first next-generation-sequencing (NGS)-based companion diagnostic approved by the agency.

Rubraca is approved for women with advanced ovarian cancer who have been treated with two or more chemotherapies and whose tumors have a specific gene mutation (deleterious BRCA) as identified by an FDA-approved companion diagnostic test.

The FDA also granted the Rubraca application breakthrough therapy designation and priority review status.

Rubraca is marketed by a US-based Clovis Oncology, while the FoundationFocus CDxBRCA companion diagnostic is marketed by Foundation Medicine, Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“Today’s approval is another example of the trend we are seeing in developing targeted agents to treat cancers caused by specific mutations in a patient’s genes,” said Richard Pazdur, M.D., FDA’s director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products and acting director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence. “Women with these gene abnormalities who have tried at least two chemotherapy treatments for their ovarian cancer now have an additional treatment option.”

Robert L. Coleman, MD, one of the Principal Investigators in the ARIEL clinical trial program, said:  “Today’s approval of Rubraca for the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer demonstrates the value of treatment with PARP inhibitors and represents an important advance for women diagnosed with either germline or somatic BRCA-mutated tumors who have been treated with two or more chemotherapies.”

Patrick J. Mahaffy, CEO and President of Clovis Oncology, said: “We believe that today’s approval of Rubraca provides an important new therapy for advanced ovarian cancer patients with a germline or somatic mutation of BRCA after two or more chemotherapies.”

The National Cancer Institute estimates that 22,280 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2016 and an estimated 14,240 will die of this disease. Approximately 15 to 20 percent of patients with ovarian cancer have a BRCA gene mutation.