QED Therapeutics Presents Data for Infigratinib in Cholangiocarcinoma in Late Br

Hi Barish,

According to the press release, infigratinib is a targeted therapy for patients with the FGFR  mutation.  Targeted treatments are those designed to counter a patient’s specific genomic mutation that is helping to cause a cancer or make it more aggressive.  Unlike other cancer treatments that are focused on the location of the cancer (e.g., bile ducts), targeted treatments are instead developed to attack specific genomic defects that may be factors in different types of cancer.

Immunotherapy drugs, by contrast, intend to boost the patient’s immune system.  There are some treatments that are BOTH immunotherapy and targeted.  For example, the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is reported to be most effective for those cholangiocarcinoma patients with MSI/MMR genomic defects when used as a single agent.

These developments are new and evolving in the medical field.  As patients and caregivers, it is important nonetheless to keep an eye on where the science is heading for our rare cancer.

Regards, Mary

Gavin, thanks as always for this helpful post.

I wanted to note that infigratinib is the new name for BGJ-398.  A number of folks on the board participated in trials for this.

Something I have wondered but have not gotten around to looking up is where these complicated and, for me at least, hard to spell drug names come from.  Not to make light of a serious topic, but some look like the Scrabble letters fell out of the bag.

UPDATE:  I looked into how drugs get their names.  There is a committee of various medical/pharma groups called the United States Adopted Name (USAN) Council which is responsible for assigning unique generic names to new drugs being developed for sale in the United States.  Some syllables in the name tell you something about the medication.  For example, according to the USAN list, “tinib” means the drug is in a class called tyrosine kinase inhibitors.

There is always something new to learn.

Regards, Mary

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by bglass. Reason: Added additional information