Pancreatic Cancer
Pancreatic cancer is a highly fatal disease with a poor prognosis. It is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States.1 Nearly 58,000 patients will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and more than 47,000 will die from the disease during 2020.2
A wide range of DDR mutations are prevalent in pancreatic cancer.3
PARP inhibitors have shown some promise in treating pancreatic cancer. In 2019, the USFDA approved the first PARP inhibitors for the treatment of pancreatic cancer; however, only about 3% of patients’ tumors harbor BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations correlated to PARP-inhibitor response.4
Novel approaches targeting DDR mutations in the treatment of pancreatic cancer are needed.
Rakovina Therapeutics Approach
We are screening our kt-2000 series PARP inhibitors against pancreatic cancer phenotypes to identify unique properties that may allow treatment of tumors that have become resistant to currently available therapies. Our kt-3000 and kt-4000 series drug candidates are being researched to identify precision medicine patient populations whose pancreatic cancer harbors specific mutations and are unlikely to respond to or become resistant to FDA approved treatment regimens.
1 Seigel, Cancers Statistics (2019)
2 American Cancer Society (2020)
3 Pekhofer, Recent Advances in Clinical Practice (2020)
4 Shindo, J. Clin Onc (2017)