LOS ALTOS, CA – RenovoRx, a Silicon Valley-based medical device company, announced today that two teams of researchers treating patients with advanced non-metastatic pancreatic tumors reported beneficial effects including lengthened survival rates when using the company’s RenovoCath™ with targeted chemotherapy. The researchers also observed enhanced results in patients who had received previous radiation.
Researchers at Florida Hospital, Tampa, FL, and El Camino Hospital, Mountain View, CA, enrolled twenty advanced-stage (Stage III) pancreatic cancer patients in the study The drug, gemcitabine, was delivered using the RenovoRx catheter, RenovoCath™, which incorporates a unique design for targeted chemotherapy delivery via the peripheral vascular system.
Shaun Bagai, the company’s CEO, said, “This early data suggests superior survival and decreased chemotherapy side effects over current treatments in patients with locally advanced disease who are not candidates for surgery. The results of this first study are encouraging. Based on initial studies, the design of a larger randomized study is well underway with initial enrollment anticipated this fall.” Dr. Paul Vitulli, one of the investigators from Florida Hospital noted, “At 25 months, in patients who received more than two treatments, the survival rate was 43%, and patients who received eight treatments demonstrated a survival rate of 53%. Survival rates rose to 75% for patients who had undergone combined radiation treatment and targeted chemotherapy with the RenovoCath™. These figures are striking in comparison with an abysmal 14% 25 month survival rate of systemic (intra-venous) delivery of gemcitabine as reported in historical controls.”
According to Dr. Christopher Lieu, Associate Professor, Division of Medical Oncology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, “Locally advanced pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease with few effective treatment options. The data presented here is very promising, particularly in patients who have received prior radiation therapy. If randomized studies validate this impressive effect, this could change practice patterns for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.”
The results of the RenovoRx-sponsored study were presented on April 2, 2017 at the Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Billary Association (AHPBA) Annual Meeting in Miami by Drs. Alexander Rosemurgy, Sharona Ross, Paul Vitulli, Florida Hospital and Drs. Reza Malek, Jiali Li, and Ramtin Agah, El Camino Hospital.