Adults with essential thrombocythemia have a newly approved treatment option for the first time in almost 30 years. The Food and Drug Administration approved Besremi, known generically as ropeginterferon alfa-2b-njft, for adults with the rare blood cancer, PharmaEssentia announced Monday. The last new therapy approved for the condition in the United States was anagrelide, in 1997.
Essential thrombocythemia, usually shortened to ET, is a myeloproliferative neoplasm in which the bone marrow makes too many platelets. The consequence patients live with is not the platelet count itself but what it can cause: blood clots, and with them heart attacks, strokes, and pulmonary embolism, alongside abnormal bleeding and an enlarged spleen. It is often driven by genetic mutations such as JAK2.
