Tepotinib
Tepotinib, sold under the brand name Tepmetko, is a medication used for the treatment of adults with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).Tepotinib first received marketing approval in Japan, in March 2020, as a "line-agnostic" drug, meaning it is approved both for treatment-naive patients and for those in whom previous attempts at treatment have failed. U.S. approval followed in February 2021. It is the second therapy approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat non-small cell lung cancer with these particular mutations, after capmatinib.

Medical uses
Tepotinib is indicated for the treatment of adults with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have a mutation that leads to mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) exon 14 skipping.

Adverse effects
The most common side effects seen in clinical trials were edema, fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, muscle aches, and shortness of breath. Like capmatinib, tepotinib can also cause interstitial lung disease and liver damage, and is toxic to a developing fetus.  The most common treatment-related adverse effect in a 2021 study were peripheral edema (54.1%), nausea (20.0%), diarrhea (19.6%), blood creatinine increased (17.6%), and hypoalbuminemia (14.5%), which were mostly mild or moderate.

Society and culture
Legal status
On 16 December 2021, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP)  of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) adopted a positive opinion, recommending the granting of a marketing authorization for the medicinal product Tepmetko, intended for the treatment of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring alterations leading to mesenchymal-epithelial transition factor gene exon 14 (METex14) skipping. The applicant for this medicinal product is Merck Europe B.V. Tepotinib (Tepmetko) was approved for medical use in the European Union in February 2022.

References
Further reading
Paik PK, Felip E, Veillon R, Sakai H, Cortot AB, Garassino MC,  et al. (September 2020). "Tepotinib in Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer with MET Exon 14 Skipping Mutations". N Engl J Med. 383 (10): 931–43. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2004407. PMC 8422679. PMID 32469185.

External links
"Tepotinib". Drug Information Portal. U.S. National Library of Medicine.
"Tepotinib hydrochloride". Drug Information Portal. U.S. National Library of Medicine.
"Tepotinib hydrochloride". NCI Drug Dictionary. National Cancer Institute.
Clinical trial number NCT02864992 for "Tepotinib Phase II in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) Harboring MET Alterations (VISION)" at ClinicalTrials.gov