Pancreatic Cancer Treatment from Merck, BioLineRX to use Drug Combination

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Pancreatic cancer affects about 48,960 individuals in the United States alone, the American Cancer Society reported. As of 2015, there is an estimated 40,560 people who will die of this disease, which accounts for 3% of all cancers and 7% of cancer deaths in the United States. The most-common type of pancreas cancer are exocrine tumors, wherein an adenocarcinoma begins in gland cells.

A new announcement coming from Israel biopharmaceutical company BioLineRX revealed that they are collaborating with U.S. pharma Merck, also known as MSD, to test a combination of drugs as treatment for pancreatic cancer, Reuters reported.

The two companies will collaborate on a Phase 2 study to find out the efficacy of BioLineRx's BL-8040 combined with KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab), Merck's anti-PD-1 therapy in patients who have metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma. According to PR Newswire, the study will be an open-label, multicenter, single-arm trial that will evaluate the safety and efficacy of the combination of dugs among such patients.

As per Pharmalive, BL-8040 works against CXCR4 receptors linked to tumor progression and in several clinical trials have proved to mobilize immune cells, thereby being effective at inducing direct tumor cell death. Merck's Keytruda is an anti-body that increases the body's immune system to help detect and fight tumor cells.

BioLineRX and Merck are to conduct the Phase 2 clinical trial mid-2016, and are both open to expanding the collaboration to include a pivotal registration study.

"Because certain tumors exhibit only a modest response to existing immunotherapies, we are increasingly seeing clinical studies involving combinations of immuno-oncology agents with other classes of drugs," Dr. Kinneret Savitsky, Chief Executive Officer of BioLineRx, said.  "We are initiating this study with the hope that it will show that the combination of BL-8040 with KEYTRUDA has the potential to expand the benefit of immunotherapy to cancer types currently resistant to immuno-oncology treatments, such as pancreatic cancer, which represents a significant unmet medical need."

"Evaluating the potential of combination therapies through strategic collaborations in difficult-to-treat tumor types continues to be an important part of our immuno-oncology clinical development program for KEYTRUDA," MSD Research Laboratories' vice president and therapeutic area head Dr. Eric Rubin added.

Back in October, the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified processed meat such as frankfurters and bacon as "carcinogenic to humans," placing such meats in the same category as tobacco and formaldehyde, TIME reported. The IARC claimed that processed meat, those that have been salted, cured, fermented, smoked or processed in any other way increased the risk for colorectal cancer by 18%. Red meat, in general, was also deemed "probably carcinogenic to humans" and was linked to an increased risk for pancreatic cancer, prostate, and colon cancer.