Photo by Bill Branson
Vials of drug
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the leukocyte growth factor Nivestym™ (filgrastim-aafi), a biosimilar to Neupogen (filgrastim).
Nivestym is approved to treat patients with nonmyeloid malignancies who are receiving myelosuppressive chemotherapy or undergoing bone marrow transplant, acute myeloid leukemia patients receiving induction or consolidation chemotherapy, patients undergoing autologous peripheral blood progenitor cell collection, and patients with severe chronic neutropenia.
The FDA’s approval of Nivestym was based on a review of evidence suggesting the drug is highly similar to Neupogen, according to Pfizer, the company developing Nivestym.
The full approved indication for Nivestym is as follows:
- To decrease the incidence of infection, as manifested by febrile neutropenia, in patients with nonmyeloid malignancies receiving myelosuppressive anticancer drugs associated with a significant incidence of severe neutropenia with fever
- To reduce the time to neutrophil recovery and the duration of fever following induction or consolidation chemotherapy in patients with acute myeloid leukemia
- To reduce the duration of neutropenia and neutropenia-related clinical sequelae (eg, febrile neutropenia) in patients with nonmyeloid malignancies undergoing myeloablative chemotherapy followed by bone marrow transplant
- For the mobilization of autologous hematopoietic progenitor cells into the peripheral blood for collection by leukapheresis
- For chronic administration to reduce the incidence and duration of sequelae of severe neutropenia (eg, fever, infections, oropharyngeal ulcers) in symptomatic patients with congenital neutropenia, cyclic neutropenia, or idiopathic neutropenia.
For more details on Nivestym, see the full prescribing information.