Really get Dis.

In yesterday’s story on the GeDDIS trial, we failed to mention another recent study that is about as big as it gets for Phase 2 trials. And for soft tissue sarcoma (STS) for that matter. It randomized 133 patients with unresectable and/or metastatic STS to doxorubicin (i.e., standard of care) +/- olaratumab. Olara-what? Olaratumab is a targeted therapy against platelet-derived growth factor alpha (PDGFRα). So this novel targeted therapy brings with it a novel target. The thought behind it is that PDGF is a key factor in mesenchymal cell growth. Well, kudos to the biologist who was listening in embryology class and decided to target this pathway in the treatment of STS. And it looks like olaratumab was clinically successful in marginally improving the primary endpoint of disease free survival from 4 → 7 months. But, now really, get this: median overall survival was almost doubled from 15 → 27 months with the addition of olaratumab. And that was regardless of tumor expression of PDGFRα. Our STS patients now have the potential to receive a truly life-prolonging therapy, at least on a study...the results of which we cannot wait to ANNOUNCE.