Roche brings 7-minute lung cancer shot to India

New Delhi: Roche Pharma India has launched the country's first injectable immunotherapy for lung cancer, allowing patients to receive the treatment in about seven minutes instead of intravenous infusions that can stretch for hours, potentially reducing long hospital visits for thousands of patients.

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has approved subcutaneous Tecentriq (atezolizumab) for adjuvant and metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The medicine is available at an MRP of about ₹3.7 lakh per dose.

The much shorter administration time compared to conventional treatment will help reduce patient and caregiver burden significantly at overcrowded cancer centres across the country, said Sivabalan Sivanesan, chief medical officer at Roche Pharma India.


Also Read: Indian pharma firms flood west Africa with powerful opioids despite crackdown: AFP investigation

Lung cancer is among the top three causes of cancer-related deaths in India, with nearly 80,000 patients diagnosed annually and almost half presenting at an advanced stage.

At present, patients typically spend at least five hours in hospital per visit for treatment, with repeated trips every three weeks, preceded by blood tests and fitness checks.

"You're talking about a frail, already symptom-heavy patient now having to go through the burden physically and emotionally of being in the hospital," Sivanesan said.

Besides quick administration time, the subcutaneous formulation requires far less preparation compared to intravenous treatment.

More than 10,000 patients globally have already received the subcutaneous formulation.

The drug was first approved by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in 2023, followed by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2024, and has since been approved across more than 85 markets.

Not all lung cancer patients are, however, candidates for the treatment, experts said.

Tecentriq works by targeting the PD-L1 receptor, which is expressed in approximately 50-60% of lung cancer patients.

“If there are 100 patients, probably 50 would be eligible for this treatment,” said Sajjan Rajpurohit, director and head of medical oncology at Medanta.

Its performance is on par with the established IV version, based on global data, though Indian-specific data is still awaited. “I’m assuming it should not be inferior, because it has been shown in global trials to be equally efficacious,” he said.

While Tecentriq is priced about Rs 25,000-30,000 premium to conventional treatment, when one considers hospital admission and administering charges, etc, the cost for the patient is similar, Rajpurohit said.

Roche cautioned against any simple per-cycle calculation, noting that treatment duration and dosing vary significantly by patient and stage of cancer, making a fixed total cost figure an inaccurate representation of real-world expenditure.

The company said it has patient access programmes in place to help make the medicine more affordable across different patient segments. Its Blue Tree programme, for instance, is designed to support patients who need to continue the drug over time, with the aim of improving both accessibility and affordability.

Tecentriq has also been enrolled under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), meaning government employees and pensioners covered under the scheme will be able to access the treatment.

Oncologists expect the drug’s affordability to improve over time. “Get the drug in India, work on the cost, and as time goes by, the cost will come down in various ways,” said Amit Rauthan, head of medical oncology at Manipal Hospital Bangalore. “We have seen this change with immunotherapy in the last decade, and I’m very happy, because once these things happen, more and more of our patients are accessing immunotherapy and we are seeing that every day.”

Many patients in India are likely to prefer Tecentriq, given that major cancer centres in the country, particularly government institutions, face average waiting times of three to four hours and significant staffing pressures amid chemotherapy preparations and patient safety checks that cannot easily be streamlined away.