Herceptin

More traditional treatments attack both cancerous and healthy cells, but Herceptin goes after the root cause of a cancer’s growth by blocking the gene’s misbehaving proteins.

A new study in Cancer Discovery recently found that of the 198 new cancer drugs that the Food and Drug Administration has approved since Herceptin in 1998, 86 of them, or 43 percent, are classified as precision oncology drugs.

The drug, Herceptin, zeroes in on the activity of HER2—a gene that can make breast cancers especially aggressive compared with HER2-negative cancers.

Cheap biotech copies will lead to an expected decline of 1.1 billion Swiss francs in 2023 sales of established medicines Herceptin, Avastin and Rituxan.

The plant makes drugs for cancer including Avastin and Herceptin, as well as Actemra for rheumatoid arthritis.