A New Targeted Treatment for Patients with a Germline BRCA Mutation: Olaparib in Pancreatic Cancer

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer has a poor prognosis. Focused efforts in the development of novel treatments of this disease have led to the approval of new combinations. Improvements in knowledge of the biology of these tumors have been made, and it is now widely accepted that a proportion of patients have potentially targetable altered genes. One such gene is BRCA, which confers sensibility to PARP inhibitors. Olaparib, an oral PARP inhibitor, initially demonstrated activity in Phase II clinical trials including germline BRCA-mutated patients. This was confirmed in a Phase III clinical trial in pancreatic cancer patients with a germline BRCA mutation. After the results of this study, new scenarios have been evoked. We review the development of olaparib in pancreatic cancer.

Keywords::

• biomarker
• BRCA mutation
• DNA damage repair
• olaparib
• pancreatic cancer
• PARP inhibition

Financial & competing interests disclosure

T Macarulla is a consultant/advisor for Amgen, Baxter, Celgene, Incyte, Q&D Therapeutics, Serviere and Shire; and received research funding from AstraZeneca, BeiGene and Celgene. H Verdaguer is an advisor for Ipsen. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Editing assistance was provided by S Mackenzie and was funded by VHIO.

Company review disclosure

In addition to the peer-review process, with the author’s consent, the manufacturer of the product discussed in this article was given the opportunity to review the manuscript for factual accuracy. Changes were made by the author at their discretion and based on scientific or editorial merit only. The author maintained full control over the manuscript, including content, wording and conclusions.

Additional information

Funding

T Macarulla is a consultant/advisor for Amgen, Baxter, Celgene, Incyte, Q&D Therapeutics, Serviere and Shire; and received research funding from AstraZeneca, BeiGene and Celgene. H Verdaguer is an advisor for Ipsen. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.