(Reuters) -The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday it has approved Boehringer Ingelheim’s drug for patients with a type of advanced lung cancer who have received prior treatment.

The drug, branded as Hernexeos, is intended for previously treated patients with non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer whose tumors have a specific genetic mutation.

The regulator’s approval was based on a study in which Hernexeos helped about 75% of patients who received prior chemotherapy achieve a complete disappearance of cancer or reduction in tumor size.

The FDA also approved Life Technologies’ diagnostic device to identify patients eligible for the treatment.

Hernexeos belongs to a class of drugs known as kinase inhibitors, which target mutations in specific proteins in the body that lead

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