Roche launches India's first 7-minute under-the-skin lung cancer injection
SWISS pharmaceutical major Roche on Thursday launched a faster, under-the-skin alternative to conventional lung cancer immunotherapy in India, aiming to cut treatment time dramatically and shift care away from overburdened hospital wards.
PTI reported that the company launched Tecentriq SC, a subcutaneous formulation of its atezolizumab injection, in India. Unlike standard intravenous infusions that can take several hours, the report said that the new injection is administered under the skin in approximately seven minutes — an 80 per cent reduction in overall administration time when preparation and waiting for an infusion chair are factored in.
"The time to administer is reduced by 80 minutes because there is no more preparation and having to wait for an infusion chair, because the eventual administration ranges between four to eight minutes, with a median of about seven minutes only. So there is a huge reduction in administration time," Roche India Director, Medical and Regulatory Affairs, Sivabalan Sivanesan told PTI.
The drug targets a significant patient population. Around 80,000 lung cancer patients are diagnosed in India each year, the majority at advanced stages of the disease.
Tecentriq SC is an immunotherapy that works by being injected directly under the skin rather than delivered through a vein. Because it eliminates the need for IV line preparation and does not require a dedicated infusion chair, the entire process — with administration taking between four and eight minutes at a median of around seven minutes — can be completed far more quickly than its intravenous counterpart.
Roche says the formulation has the potential to treat up to five patients in the time it would take to administer one intravenous infusion, a calculation that carries significant implications for how oncology resources are used. Shorter sessions mean hospital beds, healthcare staff time, and specialist oncology facilities at tertiary care centres can be freed up and redistributed.
Treatment Cost
One of the central ambitions behind the launch is shifting where treatment actually happens. Currently, most advanced lung cancer care is delivered at large tertiary hospitals. Roche argues that Tecentriq SC's speed and simplicity could allow patients to receive the same treatment at daycare centres rather than specialist wards — reducing the burden on both patients and the healthcare system.
Sivanesan further said with Tecentriq SC, lung cancer patients will be able to go from tertiary centers to daycare centers" and it even opens the door for much more potential of decentralising treatment, to be able to get the same treatment but with a much better experience.
The company says the drug maintains the same established efficacy and safety profile as the original intravenous Tecentriq formulation, meaning the clinical outcomes remain consistent while the patient experience improves considerably.
"With Tecentriq SC, we are bringing an innovation that meaningfully reduces treatment time while maintaining the established efficacy and safety profile of Tecentriq," he said,
Sivanesan added that it is priced at about "Rs 3.7 lakh per vial" and is already available in 85 countries, with over 10,000 patients having benefited from it globally.
Stating that in India 80,000 lung cancer patients are diagnosed annually, most of them with advanced stages, he said Roche's "unique formulation" will have an impact in terms of how many more patients it will actually be able to reach.
