Latest news with #KRAS
UPI
13 hours ago
- Health
- UPI
Clinical trial shows promise for new pancreatic cancer vaccine
A small clinical trial suggests a new vaccine aimed at a common cancer gene mutation could help stop aggressive pancreatic cancers from coming back. File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo A new vaccine aimed at a common cancer gene mutation could help stop aggressive pancreatic cancers from coming back, a small clinical trial suggests. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal cancers, with a five-year survival rate of about 13%, according to the American Cancer Society. Further, up to 80% of cases return after treatment, the National Institutes of Health says. "If you were to ask me what disease most needs something to prevent recurrences, I'd say this one," Dr. Zev Wainberg, a leader of the trial, told NBC News. He's co-director of the University of California, Los Angeles gastrointestinal oncology program. The experimental vaccine targets KRAS gene mutations, which are found in about 25% of all cancers, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center says. This includes up to 90% of pancreatic cancers and roughly 40% of colon cancers. While these mutations have long been considered impossible to treat with drugs, researchers are finding new ways to target them. The vaccine, called ELI-002 2P, uses small chains of amino acids called peptides to train the immune system to spot and destroy cells with KRAS mutations. Unlike many cancer vaccines that are custom-made for each patient, this one is designed to be off the shelf, meaning it doesn't require the tumor to be sequenced before it's used, NBC News reported. The Phase 1 study -- reported Tuesday in Nature Medicine -- included 20 people with pancreatic cancer and five with colon cancer. All had KRAS mutations and had already undergone surgery and chemotherapy. Blood tests after surgery showed microscopic evidence of residual disease - cancer cells too small to see on scans. These leftover cells can cause the cancer to spread and return. Post-surgery, participants received up to six priming doses of the vaccine, with 13 also getting booster shots. In all, the process took six months. Here's what the results showed: 85% (21 of 25 participants) had an immune response to the KRAS mutations. About two-thirds of those had a strong enough response to help clear lingering cancer cells. Nearly 70% developed immunity to other tumor targets not included in the vaccine. A few "super-responders" had exceptionally strong immune reactions and the best outcomes. In the pancreatic cancer group, patients survived for an average of 29 months, staying recurrence-free for more than 15 months after vaccination. "That far exceeds the rates with resectable [surgically removable] cancers," Wainberg said. Cancer vaccines have been difficult to create because cancer cells share many proteins with healthy cells, making safe targets hard to find. Advances in mRNA technology and faster gene sequencing are now making more effective cancer vaccines possible. The peptides in this vaccine also have a unique "tail" that helps them stay in lymph nodes, where immune cells are activated -- a feature past peptide vaccines didn't have, said Stephanie Dougan, an associate professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, who was not involved in the study. More research is needed to confirm the findings, and a Phase 2 trial is now underway to compare the vaccine with standard care. "The fact that the long-term survival really correlated with T-cell response suggests that the vaccine caused this," Dougan said, referring to the specific immune cells activated by the vaccine. "The idea that you can target KRAS is really exciting." More information The Mayo Clinic has more on pancreatic cancer. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Business Wire
20 hours ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Bayer and Kumquat Biosciences Enter Global Exclusive License and Collaboration in Precision Oncology
BERLIN & SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bayer and Kumquat Biosciences Inc., a clinical-stage biotech company founded by pioneers of the KRAS pathway, today announced that they have entered into an exclusive global license and collaboration to develop and commercialize Kumquat's KRAS G12D inhibitor. Under the agreement, Kumquat is responsible for the initiation and completion of the Phase Ia study, while Bayer will complete development and commercial activities. Kumquat received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance of the investigational new drug (IND) for its KRAS G12D inhibitor in July 2025. Under the terms of the agreement, Kumquat will receive up to $1.3 billion, including upfront, clinical and commercial milestones, and additional tiered royalties on net sales. Kumquat retains an exclusive option to negotiate for participating in profit-loss sharing in the US. 'We are constantly evaluating innovative approaches to improve outcomes for patients, focusing on areas of high unmet medical need,' said Juergen Eckhardt, M.D., Head of Business Development and Licensing at Bayer's Pharmaceuticals Division. 'We look forward to collaborating with Kumquat, an accomplished team of experts with deep KRAS insights. Our intent is to explore the development of a potential new treatment option for patients, while further complementing Bayer's robust early precision oncology pipeline.' Oncogenic driver mutations, such as KRAS mutations, are changes in the DNA of genes that drive the development and growth of cancer. These mutations are often identified as key targets for cancer treatment, and their identification offers the opportunity to develop target-specific drugs. KRAS G12D mutations are found most frequently in 37 percent of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), 13 percent of colorectal cancer and 4 percent of non-small cell lung cancers. 2 PDAC is the most common type of pancreatic cancer (accounting for 85 percent of cases) and remains one of the most difficult tumors to treat, with patients having few treatment options beyond chemotherapy and the five-year survival rate being less than 10 percent. 3 Pancreatic cancer is the sixth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. 4 The incidence continues to rise annually, with projections indicating a 95.4 percent increase in new cases by 2050, potentially reaching a total of 998,663 new cases globally. 4 'KRAS mutations are crucial for cancer development and can be targeted with specific therapies in a more selective manner,' said Dominik Ruettinger, M.D., Ph.D., Global Head of Research and Early Development for Oncology at Bayer's Pharmaceuticals Division. 'KRAS mutations occur in nearly 25 percent of human cancers, yet the most prevalent and oncogenic KRAS (G12D) variant still lacks effective treatment options. We look forward to exploring the investigational KRAS G12D inhibitor, which targets a highly relevant signaling pathway that promotes tumor growth and survival.' 'Since pioneering the direct targeting of KRAS G12C mutation over a decade ago, we have continued to discover innovative strategies to target other KRAS mutants, including KRAS G12D,' said Yi Liu, Chief Executive Officer of Kumquat. 'Advancing our novel KRAS G12D asset into the clinic reflects our commitment to delivering durable therapies for KRAS patients suffering from deadly malignancies such as pancreatic, lung and colorectal cancers. This collaboration with Bayer validates the strength of our platform and the potential of our KRAS G12D candidate to address long-standing unmet needs in oncology. We are thrilled to collaborate with Bayer, who shares our vision and strategy for realizing the benefit of small molecule-based transformative treatments. While advancing optimally our KRAS G12D program through the clinic, this collaboration provides Kumquat the financial resources to accelerate its broader clinical pipeline for long-term value, and position Kumquat to deliver life-changing medicines and achieve sustained growth in the coming years.' About Kumquat Biosciences Kumquat Biosciences is a privately held drug discovery and development company committed to creating life-changing medicines for cancer patients. The company focuses on translating breakthrough science into first-in-class therapeutics. Kumquat brings together an accomplished team and distinguished scientific founder with a proven track record of innovative oncology drug discovery and development. The company launched in 2019 and was funded by OrbiMed, HSG, EcoR1, Lilly Asia Ventures, Roche Venture Fund, and Boxer Capital, and previously entered two major collaborations with Eli Lilly and Takeda. For more information, please visit About Bayer Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. In line with its mission, 'Health for all, Hunger for none,' the company's products and services are designed to help people and the planet thrive by supporting efforts to master the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. Bayer is committed to driving sustainable development and generating a positive impact with its businesses. At the same time, the Group aims to increase its earning power and create value through innovation and growth. The Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2024, the Group employed around 93,000 people and had sales of 46.6 billion euros. R&D expenses amounted to 6.2 billion euros. For more information, go to Find more information at Follow us on Facebook: ak (2025-0140e) Forward-Looking Statements This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer's public reports which are available on the Bayer website at The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments. 1 Cox AD, Fesik SW, Kimmelman AC, Luo J, Der CJ. Drugging the undruggable RAS: Mission possible? Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2014 Nov;13(11):828-51. doi: 10.1038/nrd4389. Epub 2014 Oct 17. PMID: 25323927; PMCID: PMC4355017. 2 Herdeis L, Gerlach D, McConnell DB, Kessler D. Stopping the beating heart of cancer: KRAS reviewed. Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2021 Dec;71:136-147. doi: 10.1016/ Epub 2021 Jul 22. PMID: 34303932. 3 Tonini V, Zanni M. Pancreatic cancer in 2021: What you need to know to win. World J Gastroenterol 2021; 27(35): 5851-5889 URL: 4 Leiphrakpam PD, Chowdhury S, Zhang M, Bajaj V, Dhir M, Are C. Trends in the Global Incidence of Pancreatic Cancer and a Brief Review of its Histologic and Molecular Subtypes. J Gastrointest Cancer. 2025 Feb 24;56(1):71. doi: 10.1007/s12029-025-01183-2. PMID: 39992560.
Bloomberg
a day ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Bayer to Pay $1.3 Billion for Kumquat Cancer Drug in Pharma Push
Bayer AG agreed to pay Kumquat Biosciences Inc. as much as $1.3 billion to gain a potential new cancer medicine and boost its struggling pharma division's growth prospects. Bayer will help fund the development of an early stage medicine from closely held Kumquat for several types of cancer in which a gene called KRAS has mutated, the German company said in a statement Tuesday.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
One-size-fits-all pancreatic cancer vaccine showed promise in early trial
In an early trial, a one-size-fits-all vaccine showed promise in preventing hard-to-treat pancreatic cancers from coming back. Pancreatic cancer is of particular concern. The five-year survival rate is about 13%, and up to 80% of pancreatic cancers may come back. 'If you were to ask me what disease most needs something to prevent recurrences, I'd say this one,' said Dr. Zev Wainberg co-director of the University of California, Los Angeles, gastrointestinal oncology program, who co-led the Phase 1 clinical trial. The vaccine targets one of the most common genetic drivers of cancer: KRAS gene mutations. KRAS mutations occur in about one-quarter of all cancers, including as much as 90% of pancreatic cancers and about 40% of colorectal cancers. Their ubiquity makes KRAS mutations a great target for cancer therapies, but the mutations have long been considered impossible to target with drugs. To accomplish this, the vaccine uses short chains of amino acids called peptides that teach immune cells to recognize and attack cells with KRAS mutations. 'The critical step is engaging an immune response,' Wainberg said. Cancer vaccines are a growing field of research, but many of these vaccines are personalized to the patient. This means their tumor must be sequenced for a specialized vaccine to be created. The vaccine in the current study, however, doesn't need to be personalized and would be available off the shelf. Killing lingering cancer cells In the Phase 1 trial, published Monday in Nature Medicine, Wainberg and a team of doctors from across the country recruited 20 people with pancreatic cancer and five with colorectal cancer. (They chose to also include a few colorectal cancer patients because KRAS mutations are also a common driver of colorectal cancers, and people whose colorectal cancer is driven by these mutations are more likely to have a recurrence, Wainberg said.) Everyone in the trial had KRAS mutations and had undergone standard treatment — usually chemotherapy and surgery — to remove the bulk of their tumors. After surgery, blood tests showed that a smattering of cancer cells remained behind, referred to as microscopic residual disease, which is very common with pancreatic cancer. 'We are talking about cancer that is so microscopic that we can't see it on scans,' said Dr. Scott Kopetz, a professor of gastrointestinal medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. These cells can travel elsewhere in the body and grow into metastasized tumors, prompting an often fatal cancer recurrence. Chemotherapy can kill some of these cells, but some usually remain in the body. 'Realistically, if we want to kill every last cancer cell and really make people cured, you need to engage the immune system,' said Stephanie Dougan, an associate professor of cancer immunology and virology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. 'We've just been really bad at getting an immune response in pancreatic cancer.' Post-surgery, everyone in the trial got up to six priming doses of the experimental vaccine, called ELI-002 2P. Thirteen also received booster shots. The whole process took 6 months. About 85% — 21 of the 25 participants — mounted an immune response to the KRAS mutations, and about two-thirds of those patients had an immune response that appeared to be robust enough to stave off lingering cancer cells. What's more, in nearly 70% of people in the trial, the vaccine appeared to trigger an immune response not just to KRAS mutations, but to other tumor cell targets that were not in the vaccine. A few people were 'super-responders' who mounted an abnormally strong immune response to the cells. 'Those people had the best outcomes,' Wainberg said. His team is currently running a randomized Phase 2 trial to test the durability of the vaccine and compare whether the vaccine is more effective than the standard of care, which would usually be monitoring the patient for a recurrence. In the Phase 1 trial, people with pancreatic cancer survived for an average of 29 months and lived recurrence-free for more than 15 months post-vaccination. 'That far exceeds the rates with resectable cancers,' said Wainberg, referring to cancers that can be removed with surgery. A growing field Cancer vaccines have been incredibly difficult to make, in part because cancer cells have a lot of the same proteins as healthy cells, making safe targets difficult to come by. Only recently has medical technology made the strides researchers needed to hone the treatment. Refined mRNA technology and gene sequencing becoming faster and cheaper has put cancer vaccines back into clinical trials, Dougan said. Personalized mRNA cancer vaccines are showing promise in both pancreatic and colorectal cancers, but a one-size-fits-all cancer vaccine would make treatment faster and cheaper. Past trials using peptide vaccines have failed to prevent cancer recurrences. But the peptides in the new vaccine, called lipophilic peptides, have something past treatments did not — a tail. 'That tail sticks in the lymph nodes where immune cells get activated,' Dougan said. 'You need something to get the immune system going, and just injecting killed cancer cells or peptides doesn't work that well.' More advanced clinical trials will have to confirm the results of the Phase 1 trial, but promising results have been seen in other cancer vaccine trials as well and could pave the way for major breakthroughs in preventing cancer recurrences. Memorial Sloan Kettering is also working on an off-the-shelf vaccine that targets a gene mutation found in 95% of people with acute myeloid leukemia. The data from the KRAS-targeting vaccine trial published Monday showed it is likely possible to target these mutations with nonpersonalized vaccines, something researchers long thought was impossible. 'The fact that the long-term survival really correlated with T-cell response suggests that the vaccine caused this,' Dougan said, referring to the specific immune cells activated by the vaccine. 'The idea that you can target KRAS is really exciting.' This article was originally published on Solve the daily Crossword
Scottish Sun
2 days ago
- Health
- Scottish Sun
‘Remarkable' new vaccine shown to slow down world's deadliest cancer in move to ‘beat cancer for everyone'
Cancer patients survived around two years and five months after receiving the new jab FRESH HOPE 'Remarkable' new vaccine shown to slow down world's deadliest cancer in move to 'beat cancer for everyone' Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) THOUSANDS of Brits with cancer have been given fresh hope as a new jab could slow down the disease and boost survival. The vaccine, described as "remarkable" by scientists, has shown promising results in the fight against one of the deadliest forms of the disease - pancreatic cancer. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 1 The new jab trains the immune system to attack mutated genes found in many pancreatic and bowel cancers Credit: Getty - Contributor Early trials have proven the jab's ability to supercharge the immune system, enabling it to attack cancer cells and potentially prolong life for patients. More trials are now underway among a larger group of pancreatic and bowel cancer patients, as experts warn it is "too early" to say whether the jab will work at scale. Pancreatic cancer, which affects around 10,000 Brits each year, is the deadliest cancer in the world. And only about seven out of 100 of them will survive it for five years or more, according to Cancer Research UK. This is partly because it shows no symptoms until it has already spread to other parts of the body, making it incredibly hard to treat. While surgery, chemotherapy and radiation can help extend life, they rarely offer a cure. But researchers are now optimistic that this new vaccine could change that, providing a vital new treatment option other therapies fall short. 'Our results show that in the group of patients who had profound immune responses 68 per cent) we saw longer survival than we have expected in this cancer,' said Dr Zev Wainberg, study lead from the University of California, Los Angeles. 'Quite a remarkable finding to occur in a phase 1 trial.' The jab targets a mutated gene called KRAS, which is found in many pancreatic and bowel cancers. I'm a doctor, NEVER ignore these pancreatic cancer symptoms It's a type of immunotherapy vaccine designed to improve the immune system's ability to fight cancer by delivering the vaccine directly to the lymph nodes, which play a crucial role in immune defence. In the phase 1 trial, 20 pancreatic cancer patients and five bowel cancer patients received the vaccine. After 20 months, 68 per cent of patients developed strong immune responses. On average, the pancreatic cancer patients survived around two years and five months after receiving the vaccine, according to the study published in Nature Medicine. 'Patients with the strongest immune responses lived longer and stayed cancer-free for more than 15 months,' Dr Zev added. While some cancer jabs are personalised to each patient, this jab, ELI-002 2P, has a single version which can be given to all patients. This "off-the-shelf" version means that it can be manufactured in bulk and given more rapidly. Dr Chris Macdonald, head of research at Pancreatic Cancer UK, said: 'This study is a big step forward in treating pancreatic cancer. "The 'off-the-shelf' vaccine approach is quicker, cheaper, and could help many more people.' The study has already led to a phase 2 trial with 144 pancreatic and bowel cancer patients, with results expected in the coming months. Dr Dani Edmunds, research information manager at Cancer Research UK, added: "Although we've helped to double cancer survival in the UK in the past 50 years, progress has not been the same for pancreatic cancer which remains hard to treat. "Therefore, it's promising to see that vaccines could help people with pancreatic and bowel cancer live cancer-free for longer. "The results suggest that the vaccine can boost the immune system against cancer in some people following standard treatment. "These people survived and stayed free from disease for longer than people who didn't get as strong an immune boost following vaccination. "Larger controlled trials are needed to confirm these initial findings about the benefits of the vaccine. "More research is needed to understand why some people benefit from the vaccine while others don't so that we can make sure we're beating cancer for everyone." Dr Magnus Dillon, an oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, said: "It's extremely promising to have a vaccine that seems to stimulate T cell activity in KRAS-driven tumours – these are generally 'immune cold', so therapies which stimulate immune responses in this group of patients are much needed. 'Many patients have these KRAS mutations, so an off-the-shelf vaccine could benefit lots of people – it saves the cost and time required to make a personalised vaccine. 'However, it's a bit early to definitively tell whether this will work to prevent cancer relapse in this group of patients who have had all disease removed at surgery - larger studies will be needed. "A bigger challenge is to see if the activated immune system could also work against established tumours, which have many ways to avoid immune attack and prevent immune cells from entering.'
