23 January 2020 - Roche said on Wednesday China had approved the import of its Kadcyla drug for breast cancer, another win for the Swiss drug maker in its second-biggest market where rising demand has helped drive its increased sales and profit.

Kadcyla, which also recently won expanded approval in the United States, Canada and Europe for more breast-cancer patients, is an antibody-drug conjugate, a class of therapies that combine monoclonal antibodies with cytotoxic chemical that in 2019 picked up momentum with a record number of U.S. approvals.

Over a decade, China has gone from Roche’s 10th biggest market to its second-largest behind the United States, with 4.5 billion Swiss francs ($4.5 billion) in 2018 sales as more of its advanced medicines won Chinese regulators’ favour. The pace has accelerated, with growth in China topping 50% over the first nine months of 2019, about double 2018’s rate.

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