Dr. O'Reilly on Tarextumab Combinations for Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer

Eileen O’Reilly, MD, associate director for clinical research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses tarextumab combinations for patients with pancreatic cancer.

Tarextumab is a monoclonal antibody, explains O’Reilly. A phase II randomized trial was conducted following a phase Ib evaluation of combining tarextumab with gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) in patients with untreated metastatic pancreatic cancer. It was shown that the drugs can be safely combined, leading to the phase II trial.

Co-primary endpoints included overall survival and looking for outcomes in patients with phase II/III high biomarker expression, based on the preclinical data suggesting tarextumab may have heightened activity.

In the overall group there was no difference in outcome for the addition of tarextumab to gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel, explains O’Reilly. This, however, gives the opportunity to investigate why this outcome has occurred.