• This card can be used for savings on any FDA approved drug costing over $4.00
• Save between 10% and 75% with this Erbitux discount card.
  • 1Simply print it and give to your pharmacist.
  • 2You will then receive a discount on this prescription along with all prescription medications purchased from the same pharmacist in the future.
  • 3There is no application process and everyone qualifies.

Cetuximab (Erbitux) is a chimeric (mouse/human) monoclonal antibody, an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor, given by intravenous infusion for treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer and head and neck cancer. When growth factors bind to their receptors on the surface of the cell, the receptors give a signal that causes cells to divide. Some cancers are caused by mutated receptors that give a signal to divide even without growth factor. That causes the cells to divide uncontrollably. Cetuximab binds to such receptors and turns off that signal. The EGFR sends a signal down a pathway (see MAPK) that includes another protein, KRAS (also spelled K-ras). In some cancers, the EGFR is mutated, and is present to a larger or smaller degree. In these cancers, the KRAS protein may also be "wild" or mutated. If mutated, KRAS sends a signal to divide uncontrollably, even if EGFR has been blocked by cetuximab. Cetuximab binds to EGFR and turns off the uncontrolled growth in cancers with EGFR mutations (although in practice, studies have shown that the effect of cetuximab does not actually depend on the amount of EGFR receptor protein found on the cancer cells). However, if the KRAS protein in mutated, cetuximab has been found not to work, because the mutated KRAS gene downstream is causing the problem by continuously sending a growth signal (the KRAS protein) and this mutated gene now does not respond to the EGFR receptor. Therefore, before cetuximab is used, the standard of care is that the KRAS gene in the cancer cells is tested for mutation. If KRAS is normal (wild type), cetuximab might work. But if KRAS is mutated, indications are that cetuximab (and also panitumumab) will not work, because the mutated KRAS gene continuously sends a KRAS protein signal to divide, even when cetuximab has turned the earlier EGFR signal off. A genetic test for the KRAS mutation was approved by the FDA as an indication for Erbitux treatment of colon cancer in July, 2009 (this also applied to the EGFR antibody panitumumab) This was the first genetic test to guide treatment of cancer.

Wikipedia contributors. "Erbitux" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Jul 7, 2012. Web. Jul 10, 2012.