The first targeted therapy for an aggressive type of lung cancer approved in Spain

The 30,000 people in Spain who suffer from non-small cell lung cancer now have access to a new medication, sotorasib, after its inclusion in the pharmaceutical provision of the National Health System (SNS). The approval is for these patients with a KRASG12C mutation and previously treated. Amgen’s drug is the first targeted therapy approved in the world for this type of patients with advanced NSCLC and is the first inhibitor of the KRASG12C mutation, a historic scientific milestone that required more than 40 years of research. In fact, for decades it was thought that this mutation was not pharmacologically treatable. The KRAS oncogene is one of the most common genetic mutations related to cancer, and it generates a protein that participates in the multiplication, maturation and survival of the body’s cells. This oncogene was discovered in 1982 independently by three research groups, including the one led by Mariano Barbacid. Related News ABC AWARDS HEALTH standard No How to hunt cancer before it gives symptoms Javier Palomo The oncological hyper-early diagnosis and prevention unit at the HM Hospital is the first of its kind in Europe. It uses traditional screening tests and the most modern molecular diagnostic tests. Non-small cell lung cancer accounts for 85% of all cases. It is one of the most aggressive tumors that exist and, in fact, up to 66% of patients present locally advanced or metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis6. The KRASG12C mutation, against which sotorasib is directed, is one of the most frequent in this type of cancer, representing more than 13% of NSCLC cases in Spain6. “Patients with non-small cell cancer have a very unfavorable prognosis, so the arrival of sotorasib is very good news for them since it is one of the lung tumors with the highest mortality rate,” says Mariano Provencio, president of the Spanish Lung Cancer Group (GECP) and head of the Medical Oncology Service at the Puerta de Hierro Hospital, Madrid. Indeed, in 2021, there were more than 22,000 deaths from lung cancer, according to the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM).