For people who have advanced non-small cell lung cancer with a rare genetic change or mutation, results from a clinical trial may offer hope. The mutation affects a stretch of DNA called exon 20 in the EFGR gene. Joshua K. Sabari, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Medicine and a member of NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, discussed the results of the phase 2 clinical trial with FierceBiotech.

The drug, called amivantamab, shrank tumors in 40 percent of people who have non-small cell lung cancer with the rare EGFR mutation and hindered tumor growth in nearly three quarters of patients. Most of the side effects were mild to moderate, and patients responded to treatment for almost a year without the cancer progressing for more than eight months, which “rivals what we see in the frontline setting for chemotherapy,” Dr. Sabari says.

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