Gastrointestinal Cancers With Zev Wainberg, MD

Gastroenterology

Dr. Wainberg is an academic medical oncologist at the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine specializing in gastrointestinal malignancies. He currently serves as the co-director of the GI oncology program, medical director of the Pancreas Cancer Center with a joint appointment in medicine and surgery, and as the director of the Early Phase Clinical Research Program at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA. 


Reflecting on Pancreatic Cancer at ASCO GI 2025

Dear readers,

At ASCO GI 2025, we had several updates on novel therapeutics in pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Picozzi updated us on the development of pamrevlumab (antibody against connective tissue growth factor). Unfortunately, in 2 separate trials, the addition of this agent to standard chemo (gem/nab-pac) failed to improve clinical outcomes. This points to the challenges we have faced over the last decade adding novel therapies to this regimen.
We also saw updates on 2 separate KRAS inhibitors:
RMC 6236 was dosed in 127 patients with RAS mutated PDAC, with an overall response rate 20-30% (depending on line of therapy) and a median PFS of 8.5 months (second line). This molecule has now moved to a randomized Phase III trial against investigator’s choice of chemo in 2nd line metastatic PDAC
The KRAS G12D specific inhibitor RMC-9805 was also update at this meeting, with a total of 104 patients treated with this agent. Efficacy was reported on the 40 who reached doses expected to be efficacious with a response rate of 30%. There are combination cohorts open with this agent with standard chemotherapy in both 1st and 2nd line metastatic PDAC.
Kindly,
Zev Wainberg, MD

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