Emory research helps lead to new FDA-approved treatment for aggressive breast cancer

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U.S. FDA Approves Trodelvy® for First-Line Treatment of Metastatic Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Credit: Copyright Business Wire 2026

Adult patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer now have a new treatment available thanks in part to research conducted at Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute.

This most aggressive subtype of breast cancer is a fast-progressing disease with poor prognosis and limited treatment options, said Dr. Kevin Kalinsky, director of the center's Division of Medical Oncology. 

"There was a time where we weren't seeing patients with metastatic triple negative breast cancer even necessarily living a year," he said. 

Winship Cancer Institute sees more than 1,000 patients with breast cancer a year, and about a quarter of them are diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, Kalinsky said, noting that non-Hispanic Black women have a higher rate of triple negative breast cancers than others.

Healthcare professionals have well-established experience with Trodelvy, with more than 75,000 breast cancer patients treated across more than 60 countries over the past six years. That treatment combines an immune boosting drug with an antibody drug conjugate, which targets a specific protein on a cancer cell. 

"So, that is essentially a smart drug," Kalinsky said. "That is, the way that your GPS tells you where to go is the way this drug works, is it targets this protein and directly delivers chemo to that cancer cell."

These are drugs that had both previously received approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but Kalinsky found that giving this combination in newly diagnosed cases works well.

"We see that giving it earlier, patients seem to do better," he said.