Herwenda

Herwenda is a medicine used to treat the following types of cancer: - early breast cancer (when the cancer has spread within the breast or to the glands under the arm but not to other parts of the body) after surgery, chemotherapy (medicines to treat cancer), and radiotherapy (treatment with radiation) if applicable. It can also be used earlier in treatment, in combination with chemotherapy. For tumours that are locally advanced (including those that are inflammatory) or more than 2 cm wide, Herceptin is used before surgery in combination with chemotherapy and then again after surgery on its own; Herwenda should only be used in patients with metastatic or EBC whose tumours have either HER2 overexpression or HER2 gene amplification - metastatic breast cancer (cancer that has spread to other parts of the body). It is used on its own in patients in whom previous treatments have failed. It is also used in combination with other anticancer medicines: with paclitaxel or docetaxel, or with an aromatase inhibitor; - metastatic gastric (stomach) cancer, in combination with cisplatin and either capecitabine or 5‑fluorouracil (other anticancer medicines). Herwenda can only be used when the cancer has been shown to ‘overexpress HER2’: this means that the cancer produces a protein called HER2 in large quantities on the surface of the tumour cells. HER2 is overexpressed in about a quarter of breast cancers and a fifth of gastric cancers. Herwenda is a ‘biosimilar medicine’. This means that Herwenda is highly similar to another biological medicine (the ‘reference medicine’) that is already authorised in the EU. The reference medicine for Herwenda is Herceptin. For more information on biosimilar medicines, see [here](https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory-overview/biosimilar-medicines-overview). Herwenda contains the active substance trastuzumab.