Safety Profiles and Pharmacovigilance Considerations for Recently Patented Anticancer Drugs: Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the most frequent cause of cancer-related death. In the last decades, the introduction of targeted therapies and more recently, of immunotherapy, has led to significant improvements in different outcomes of this malignant neoplasm.

The present review provides a balanced overview of most recent targeted therapies and immunotherapies patented for the treatment of lung cancer.

An extensive scientific literature and patent databases search were performed to identify peerreviewed studies containing information on recently patented drugs for the treatment of lung cancer, with a particular focus on their safety data and recently patented combinations.

The development of therapies directed to different pathways involved in the tumor angiogenesis, proliferation, and metastasis has transformed the clinical practice of lung malignancies. Several clinical trials have shown an improvement in terms of progression-free survival and overall survival in patients with advanced/metastatic lung cancer. Safety data, extracted from clinical trials and from the WHO global database of adverse drug reactions (VigiAccessTM database), show that recently patented drugs for the treatment of lung cancer are well-tolerated and most of the adverse events reported are mild to moderate.

Currently, a consistent number of new drugs and combinations have been introduced for the treatment of patients with advanced-stage lung cancer. Safety data remain essential to better assess the long-term risk/benefit ratio of these valuable emerging therapies. The new patents' development could provide further significant improvements for lung cancer treatment.