What is acotinib/acalatinib?

Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) is an effective target for the treatment of B-cell malignancies, and oral BTK inhibitors have become the standard for the treatment of these diseases. Acalabrutinib is a second-generation highly selective and potent covalent BTK inhibitor that has demonstrated minimal off-target activity in in vitro experiments and has the potential to improve tolerability compared with ibrutinib, the first BTK inhibitor of its kind.

Acotinib was approved in the United States in 2017 and 2019 respectively for the treatment of relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Acotinib is also being tested in other B-cell malignancies, both as monotherapy and in combination. Recent clinical data show that acotinib improves progression-free survival (PFS); in patients with untreated CLL, acotinib with or without obinutuzumab improves PFS. Overall, acotinib had a tolerable safety profile, with most adverse events of grade 1/2 severity (most commonly headache and diarrhea) and low rates of discontinuation due to adverse events.

The original drug of acotinib has been launched in China and has been included in medical insurance. The common specifications are100mg*8 pills*7 tablets. The price of each box may be more than 40,000 yuan; while the price of the original drug sold overseas may be more than 10,000 US dollars, which is very expensive. Fortunately, there are already generic acotinib drugs on the market, and their drug ingredients are basically the same as the original drugs at home and abroad. For example, the price of a box of 100mg*60 tablets produced by Laos Pharmaceuticals may be more than 3,000 yuan (the price may fluctuate due to exchange rates).