Available and reimbursable in Italy avelumab, drug indicated for maintenance treatment in patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma, without progression after platinum-based chemotherapy. Jan Kirsten, President and CEO of Helthcare Merck Italia, underlined the importance of cooperation between the companies that made this important result possible. “This alliance for us clearly meant strengthening our presence on the market and pursuing research and above all innovation in the interest of patients. Avelumab represents this product that we have been able to develop for the benefit of patients and which will be able to demonstrate its superiority also for their well-being “. Alberto Stanzione, Oncology Country Lead Pfizer Italy, expressed his satisfaction with the results achieved: “We are really proud to have brought a truly innovative drug that is already proposing itself as a new standard of therapy, and among other things proposing in the pathology of urothelial carcinoma a completely new approach, that of maintenance therapy which, for the first time, has been proposed for this oncological pathology with unprecedented results “. The innovations brought about by the introduction of avelumab were exposed by Sergio Bracarda, Director of the Oncology Department at the Santa Maria di Terni Hospital: “Avelumab is a monoclonal antibody that binds to the so-called PD-L1 checkpoint protein: it is one of those therapies that allow our immune system to recognize bladder cancer as such and to attack it. Unlike chemotherapy, it does not have a direct action on the disease but favors its aggression by the immune system “. Roberto Iacovelli, Medical Director UOC Medical Oncology Foundation Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli, presented the results of the use of avelumab: “It is used as a form of innovative maintenance strategy immediately after chemotherapy, or in those patients who undergo chemotherapy, have a benefit because the disease is stopped or reduced by chemotherapy and this new drug is inserted to maintain the response. The results were brilliant because there was an improvement in the control of the disease but above all in the survival of the patients “.
