Kadcyla is the new drug that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved to help battle breast cancer with less side effects.
According to Reuters Kadcyla is manufactured by A Swiss drug-making company called Roche.
Kadcyla is an antibody-drug conjugates, which means that is a combination of a drug and an antibody. In the case of Kadcyla, Herceptin is combined with DM1, a killer toxin.
The toxin attaches to the cancer cells and leave the healthy cells in the body alone, which means there are less side effects than normal cancer treatments.
An article in The New York Times reports that Kadcyla was tested on about 1000 women with metastatic breast cancer who were not responding to other treatments. The women receiving the drug lived an average of 30 months longer than those not receiving Kadcyla.
Kadcyla will run almost $10,000 for a monthly treatment and around $95,000 for a full course of the treatment
Kadcyla does come with serious warnings on the package such as liver toxicity, heart toxicity and death. It is also recommended that women who may become pregnant take birth control while receiving treatments, Kadcyla could cause birth defects.
Kadcyla should be available to the public within a couple of days.
