Tazverik has received the first approval for treatment of adults and pediatric patients 16 years and older with metastatic or locally advanced epithelioid sarcoma that cannot be resected, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced.
The tazemetostat drug works by blocking activity of the EZH2 methyltransferase to help keep the cancer cells from growing. Last month, the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted unanimously that the benefits of Tazverik outweigh the risks for patients with epithelioid sarcoma, which accounts for less than 1 percent of all soft tissue sarcomas, Dr. Richard Pazdur, director of the FDA Oncology Center of Excellence and acting director of the Office of Oncologic Diseases in the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in an agency news release Friday.