Two-thirds of patients saw their tumours shrink on a guided drug pairing for advanced bladder cancer

For people with advanced cancer of the bladder and urinary tract who are not well enough for the standard chemotherapy drug cisplatin, options have long been limited. At Europe's main cancer congress in Madrid, researchers from Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center presented results for 40 such patients treated with sacituzumab tirumotecan — a “guided” medicine that seeks out a marker called TROP2 on tumour cells and delivers its cancer-killing payload directly to them — together with pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy that helps the immune system attack cancer. Tumours shrank in 68% of patients, and in 88% the disease either shrank or stayed stable. Responses lasted a median of 19.4 months, and the cancer was held back for a median of 11.2 months. Side effects were described as manageable, with no treatment-related deaths, and the results have prompted a global Phase 3 trial to confirm the benefit.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation