Investigational drugs in early stage clinical trials for the treatment of HER2+ breast cancer.

Further changes will probably occur during the next decade in the management of metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. This is mainly driven by the fact that the two mainstay drugs (pertuzumab and TDM-1) that confer prolonged survival (56 months) to these patients are currently being used in the treatment of early-stage disease in a subset of patients. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop new, innovative approaches in those patients whose disease has become resistant to these highly potent drugs. Several new antibody-drug conjugates, bispecific antibodies or new generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKIs) hold promise and should be assessed and compared with drugs currently used.