Luke O’Neill with some promising advances in treating pancreatic & ovarian cancer
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
In Ireland, nothing gets us talking like lions. Tea?
Small talk. Well Jimmy, shock on weather we're having. Big talk.
Even I could have played county. Office talk. I'm MIA in the AM, but I'll circle back on the KPIs. Real talk. Milk before tea. Should be a criminal offence. You could say we talk too much, but the truth is, we don't talk nearly enough. Lions puts the talk into tea. The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk.
I'm joined by Luke O'Neill, Professor of Biochemistry at the School of Immunology at Trinity College in Dublin. Luke, good morning. Good morning, Pat. Fresh off the plane from Boston. Yes, I've been in Boston, America, which is still as amazing a country as we know, but I went to a place called NIH. NIH is where the big medical research happens and there's police there every day to stop the protesters. And what are they protesting about? Well, the American public, a lot of them are against science, strangely. That's a very peculiar development, isn't it? And they blame the NIH for not doing better during the pandemic. You know, there was this conspiracy theory the virus was funded by the Americans, all this kind of thing, you know.
So there's still a lot of paranoia over this. The best source, Pat, there's a big poster of Trump as you walk in. That had to be moved up very high because they kept defacing it. The scientists now kept defacing it. facing the push of Trump. So that's too high. You can't reach it. No sign of Dr. Fauci? No. And I was asking him. I met some of his colleagues. He's basically fully retired and he can't come in, of course.
What recent advancements are being made in pancreatic and ovarian cancer treatments?
It's a very sad end to his career anyway. Public enemy number one. Exactly. It's awful. Anyway, you have some good news for two particular councillors which have been a bit difficult to treat. That's right. It's a great story, really, because every week there's new cancer therapies. Talk about advances. It's remarkable, the progress being made. But this week, a big one is pancreatic and ovarian cancer. Now, as you probably know, these are very nasty. And when you're diagnosed with them, you're normally in trouble. It's too late, usually, actually, when you get diagnosed. And not much progress has happened in the past four or five years, really. But now, pancreatic in particular, a trial has shown a doubling of the survival time, which is a big effect in that kind of cancer.
Sure. Now, doubling in this case means, sadly, Pat, if you're diagnosed, it's about seven months is your lifespan. That goes up to almost 14 on this new therapy, and that's a big effect for people. And, of course, what they say is, well, it's the start of it now. They've got a drug that they can build on, is the idea. Okay, now, this particular drug, this is not a complicated treatment to get. It's a pill. It's not an infusion or anything that intrusive. That's right. It's called Daroxin Razib. Awful name, Daroxin Razib. Now, it targets, Pat, a thing called Raz... Now, anybody listening who knows about cancer research would have heard of RAS. RAS is a gene often mutated in cancer. So many cancers have RAS mutated, and it's too active, and it causes the cell to divide out of control.
So RAS inhibitors have been around for a while, especially in pancreatic. This drug really blocks RAS, and that's why they think it's so effective. And if you knock RAS down... The cancer stops growing is the idea. And to see a doubling of survival, that's why it's a headline, I guess. Nothing before. It's called unprecedented for pancreatic cancer. Okay. How quickly would it become available? I mean, this was a phase three trial. Now, if your number is up and you have this kind of cancer, there's an argument that says, okay, let's go with this. Because, I mean, the alternative is do nothing and you die. Yeah. Get RAS and you live a good bit longer, perhaps. Now, you're right, Pat. Importantly, it's gone through the phase three.
That's the last phase of testing and lots of patients were given the drug and they see this doubling in survival. That gives us huge confidence that it really works. Now, there'll be pressure to get it approved as quickly as possible and made available.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:27
2
What recent advancements are being made in pancreatic and ovarian cancer treatments?
1:27–3:56
3
How significant is the survival rate improvement for pancreatic cancer patients?
3:56–5:47
4
What is the new drug Daroxin Razib and how does it work?
5:47–7:51