Breaking Through for Cancer
Kumudha Raju
- India’s first U.S. FDA approved Biosimilar Trastuzumab brings new hope to patients
When Kumudha Raju felt a lump in her breast in 2015, she was worried and went in for a mammography. To her relief, she tested negative for breast cancer. After all, she lived a healthy and active lifestyle, had no history of cancer in her family and was relatively young.
Then in 2018, she felt a sharp stabbing pain in her breast and an increase in the size of the same lump. She underwent some tests again and unfortunately, this time her tests turned positive and malignancy was detected. After ruling out the possibility of a spread, a lumpectomy was carried out. During this difficult time, she was subjected to 16 gut-wrenching cycles of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Her tumour was positive for a specific marker HER2. It was then that she was prescribed 17 cycle of Trastuzumab infusions. Kumudha is a very strong, independent and highly positive woman. She is a woman of principles and carries the hope of serving others rather than taking any help from others. In spite of all odds, she completed her Trastuzumab treatment for one year.
“Don’t let social stigma get you down, just stay positive and emerge stronger.”
“I’m feeling so much more positive now. I have been working in National Hill View Public School Bengaluru, India, and I am thankful to God for giving me so much strength that I am continuing to live with my mission to serve others around me. I hope my story inspires other women to be self-aware and go in for regular tests, for early detection is the key to beating cancer. Don’t let social stigma bog you down, just stay positive and emerge stronger,” says Kumudha, who has completed her Trastuzumab therapy this year, and is well on her way to leading a normal and fulfilling life.
Kumudha is one of the many women fighting HER2-positive breast cancer — one which hits 25% of the over 2 million breast cancer cases worldwide. For cancer patients, hope has come in the form of an affordable, high-quality biosimilar Trastuzumab – a targeted therapy indicated for the treatment of HER2-positive in the early stage and metastatic breast cancers and metastatic gastric cancer. Co-developed by Biocon and Mylan, it now enjoys the unique distinction of being the first biosimilar Trastuzumab to be approved anywhere in the world (2013), as well as, the first biosimilar Trastuzumab to be approved by the U. S. FDA (2017).
Nothing can be more fulfilling than making a difference to human life. Today, we’re glad several thousand lives have been impacted by our Trastuzumab therapy. The positive data from the HERITAGE study, a Phase III safety and efficacy trial of proposed Trastuzumab biosimilar, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting and The Journal of American Medical Association has further strengthened our resolve to make Trastuzumab available as an essential therapy for cancer patients, across the world.
Watch the inspirational story of Kumudha Raju from Bengaluru, a cancer warrior and fighter who fought and sailed through cancer.
