More Anal Cancer Drugs Are Coming Despite Incyte Stumble

September 9

This summer, Incyte Corp. hit a roadblock in the company’s quest to have its drug retifanlimab become the first FDA-approved treatment of its kind for patients with the most common type of anal cancer.

Retifanlimab is an immune checkpoint inhibitor (also known as immunotherapy) that aims to treat adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal (SCAC) whose disease has progressed after receiving platinum-based chemotherapy or who were intolerant of that type of chemotherapy. Currently, there are no approved treatment options available to patients who meet these criteria, according to Incyte.

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Radar on Drug Benefits

Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.