5 New Breast Cancer Treatments That Are Helping to Save Lives

In the fight to end breast cancer, several new drugs are expected to become available soon.

Bloomberg Intelligence predicts drug sales to treat the disease could rise to $23 billion by 2021, a 50% gain, because major companies including Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) , Novartis AG (NVS) and Pfizer Inc. (PFE) are testing new treatments.

The latest addition to the spread of treatments is Puma Biotechnology Inc.'s (PBYI) Nerlynx, which is expected to become commercially available in September. The federal Food and Drug Administration approved its use on Monday, July 17.

Nerlynx is a once-daily oral inhibitor of an enzyme called tyrosine kinase that can mutate to create the conditions for unregulated cell growth, a needed step for cancer to thrive. Following other therapies, it is for the extended treatment of adult patients with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer, a type of the disease in which cancer cells tend to grow larger and faster and are more likely to regrow. In the most recent study, 94.2% of patients taking Nerlynx were disease-free after two years compared to 91.9% of those who received a placebo, a 34% reduction in the cancer's appearance and death as a result of the disease.

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Written by Breana Noble for thestreet.com