- Novel insights from Project Survival®, a 7-year multi-center longitudinal clinical trial of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma
- Findings reveal distinct metabolic subtypes tied to patient survival and highlight the potential for a minimally invasive method of subtyping to stratify patients for more personalized treatments
BOSTON, MA – January 22, 2025 – BPGbio, Inc., a leading biology-first, AI-powered clinical-stage biopharma company focused on mitochondrial biology and protein homeostasis, today announced the presentation of new findings in pancreatic cancer subtyping from Project Survival® (NCT2781012), the company’s 7-year-long longitudinal pancreatic cancer precision medicine clinical trial, at the ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, being held January 23–25, 2025, in San Francisco, Calif.
Aimed at improving pancreatic cancer survival rate, the multi-center clinical trial employed comprehensive biomarker discovery to understand patient survival allowing new diagnostic, therapeutic, and clinical support opportunities to be developed. Leveraging the biology-first approach and causal AI capabilities of BPGbio’s proprietary NAi Interrogative Biology® platform, researchers conducted a comprehensive multiomics analysis of plasma samples from 280 PDAC patients over seven years and found distinct molecular patterns correlated with both long-term and short-term survival outcomes.
Notably, elevated cholesterol metabolism was observed in long-term survivors, while reduced levels of specific lipids characterized short-term survivors, among other biomarkers. These findings offer the potential of non-invasive blood-based biomarker panels for precise patient stratification and more tailored treatment.
Pancreatic cancer remains one of the deadliest cancers due to its typically late diagnosis and rapid progression. The current way of identifying tumor tissue subtypes such as ‘Cholesterogenic’ and ‘Classical’ is associated with improved survival, but tissue-based profiling poses challenges due to the invasive nature of sample collection and the time it takes to analyze tissue subtypes, relative to the quick advancement of the disease.
“Pancreatic cancer is not a one-size-fits-all disease. One of the biggest challenges we face in treating it is the rapid progression of the disease, which often leaves us with little time to make critical decisions,” said Madappa Kundranda, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of Division of Cancer Medicine, Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center, who was the principal investigator of the study. “Our research aims to address this by identifying pancreatic cancer subtypes quicker, allowing us to better select patients for clinical trials and, ultimately, develop more tailored treatments that can significantly improve patient outcomes.”
“This study identifies how critical it is to go beyond genomics in biomarker discovery in order to capture the biological diversity of patients which impacts therapeutic decision,” said Michael A. Kiebish, Ph.D., VP of Platform and Translational Sciences, BPGbio. “To effectively treat the patient, not just the disease, we must identify the right molecular signature, which can be revealed through advanced multi-omics technologies that provide a holistic view of the body’s biology.”
“At BPGbio, we believe that understanding differences in patient biology between disease and non-disease populations requires a systems medicine approach and these findings from Project Survival®, are a testament to the power of that perspective,” said Niven R. Narain, Ph.D., President and CEO of BPGbio. “By expanding our focus beyond cancer tissues and by performing comprehensive molecular profiling on patient plasma, we unlock critical insights into pancreatic cancer biology. This enables us to move toward more tailored treatments for various categories of patients, bringing us closer to the ultimate goal of this meaningful project – survival.”
ASCO-GI Presentation Details
Abstract #: 775
Abstract Title: Lipogenic and Metabolic Subtypes Define Survival Outcome in Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Patients
In-Person Session Name: Poster Session B: Cancers of the Pancreas, Small Bowel, and Hepatobiliary Tract
In-Person Poster Session Date: January 24, 2025, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. PST
Presenter: Madappa Kundranda, M.D., Ph.D.
