"Breakthrough Therapy Designation" is a regulatory term. It's definitely good news, but it's also a pretty common occurrence that the FDA designates a breakthrough drug, and it does not guarantee that drug's ultimate approval.
It's also not really "news". It's a development that incrementally smoothes the path for what is still a highly uncertain outcome. And per the linked article it appears to be based on interim data in a phase 1/2 trial. Very early.
There are many drugs that look promising at this stage (that's why the breakthrough designation exists!) But this piece of news is unremarkable. Merus, the company behind Petosemtamab, alone has like seven cancer drugs in various stages of development.
And there are probably hundreds of cancer drugs in development at any given time.
So this is just a mechanical write-up of a regulatory checkpoint for a drug that's like 30% of the way to approval and is among many, many other cancer drugs all sitting at different points along the same continuum.
HN is really random, but also the submitter is an author whose posts are regularly submitted to HN and is a participant (I believe) in a trial for the drug in the article. The regular updates (and the author’s participation in threads) have endeared him to the community.
It's also not really "news". It's a development that incrementally smoothes the path for what is still a highly uncertain outcome. And per the linked article it appears to be based on interim data in a phase 1/2 trial. Very early.
There are many drugs that look promising at this stage (that's why the breakthrough designation exists!) But this piece of news is unremarkable. Merus, the company behind Petosemtamab, alone has like seven cancer drugs in various stages of development.
And there are probably hundreds of cancer drugs in development at any given time.
So this is just a mechanical write-up of a regulatory checkpoint for a drug that's like 30% of the way to approval and is among many, many other cancer drugs all sitting at different points along the same continuum.
HN is really random sometimes.