7. New Options for Liver and Bladder Cancer
Several new drugs for bladder or liver cancer were approved in 2019. The liver wave actually began last year, when the Food and Drug Administration gave the nod to Lenvima (lenvatinib) and Keytruda (pembrolizumab) for hepatocellular carcinoma. This year, the agency added two more targeted therapies, Cabometyx (cabozantinib) and Cyramza (ramucirumab), more than doubling the number of options in 12 months. For urothelial cancer, which involves the bladder and urinary tract, the FDA approved the antibody-drug conjugate Padcev (enfortumab vedotin) and the FGFR inhibitor Balversa (erdafitinib). Plus, an advisory committee recently recommended a new early bladder cancer indication for Keytruda. Current standard therapy for bladder cancer includes bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG), a bacterium that triggers an immune response to kill cancer cells. Early research suggests that anthrax and a common cold virus might also one day play a role.
