Lilly Korea said it released Retevmo (selpercatinib), the first RET (rearranged during transfection) targeted therapy, in Korea on Wednesday.

The market release follows Retevmo’s winning the regulatory nod in March to treat adult patients with metastatic RET fusion-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), adults and pediatric patients 12 years of age or older with advanced or metastatic RET-mutated medullary thyroid cancer requiring systemic therapy, and adult patients who are refractory to radiation iodine and who have prior sorafenib and/or lenvatinib treatment, or adult patients with advanced or metastatic RET-fusion benign thyroid cancer who require systemic therapy.

The approval for Retevmo was based on the LIBRETTO-001 trial in RET-mutated advanced or metastatic solid cancer patients.

Metastatic RET-fusion positive NSCLC patients who had never received platinum chemotherapy showed an 85 percent response rate in Retevmo treatment.

RET targeted therapies have drawn much attention from the pharmaceutical industry because they can be used for cancer patients who have RET-fusion positive tumors, regardless of the cancer type, industry officials said. 

Currently, there are only two authorized RET targeted therapies – Lilly’s Retevmo and Roche’s Gavreto (pralsetinib).

Also in March, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety authorized Gavreto to treat adult patients with RET fusion-positive locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC and adult patients with RET-mutated locally advanced or metastatic medullary thyroid cancer requiring systemic therapy.

The approval of the two rival drugs signaled that they would compete in the Korean market soon. 

Asked when Roche plans to release Gavreto in Korea, an official at Roche Korea said the company was “doing its best to release the treatment as soon as possible.” 

However, the official declined to specify any market release deadline. 

Not only multinational pharmaceutical firms but a Korean drugmaker, HK inno.N, is working on a RET inhibitor.

In February 2021, HK inno.N agreed with Voronoi to develop VRN061782, a selective RET inhibitor. HK inno.N hopes to enter a clinical trial of VRN061782 within this year. 

HK inno.N aims to develop VRN061782 as a customized targeted therapy that selectively targets cancer cells with identical biomarkers in cancers including RET-fusion positive or mutated lung and thyroid cancer.