Herceptin in a pill

[schoolteacher]

Has anyone heard of a trial for Herceptin in pill form?

Amelia

[Jackie07]

The timeline of Herceptin on the Genetech website did not mention it:

http://www.gene.com/gene/products/information/oncology/herceptin/timeline.html

[Jackie07]

Perhaps one of the new Her2 meds will be in pill form? Anyone has more information on this?

http://www.gene.com/gene/pipeline/status/

[Jackie07]

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00876109

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00928330

[schoolteacher]

Jackie,

Someone on Breastcancer.org was talking about a new trial for Herceptin in a pill that is suppose to be enrolling soon.

Amelia

[Jackie07]

I guess it is 'GDC-0941' used in these two trials:

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00876109 (http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00876109)

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00928330 (http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00928330)

[Lani]

According to the trials information quoted above, GDC-0941 is an oral PI3K inhibitor which the trials give with or without herceptin TDM-1(which is given intravenously)

Herceptin is an monoclonal antibody and I doubt it could ever be given orally
itself That said other her2 inhibitors could be including those which block her2 and other her family members if they are TKIs(tyrosine kinase inhibitors) as these are small molecules which are amenable to being made into oral medications

TKIs tend to be more "oromiscuous" ie, attack more targets than monoclonal antibodies which are more specific.

Think of chemo drugs as carpet bombs, monoclonal antibodies as smart bombs and TKIs as a bit dumber bombs--but sometimes their other targets are also something you wouldn't mind attacking, in which case they may be smarter than you think!

An example of a TKI is lapatinib, but other anti-her2plus TKIs are under
development. They attack the her family members including her2 from the inside rather than on the surface of a cell

Hope this helps!

[Jackie07]

Great analogy, Lani. Just found what you had posted 2 weeks ago:

http://her2support.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=49149&highlight=PI3K

[schoolteacher]

Thanks, Lani and Jackie. I like the part about the bombs.

Amelia