Lifespan Cancer Institute Chief Advances Promising New Cancer Drug

A promising new cancer drug stimulating the body’s immunity cells will move to stage 2 testing soon, announced lead investigator Howard Safran, MD, the chief of hematology and oncology at the Lifespan Cancer Institute at Rhode Island, The Miriam and Newport hospitals, and the medical director for the Brown University Oncology Group, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in early June.

The medication – DF1001 – works by activating specific immune cells that can help fight cancer. The second phase of medication testing will test the drug on a larger group of people and focus on its safety and effectiveness.

During phase one, 67% of the patients who took the medication had a positive response in their biopsies. The researchers also found that DF1001 is safe and well-tolerated when given alone or in combination with other drugs.

Researchers “have not seen toxicity or hit a maximum tolerated dose,” said Dr. Safran, a nationally recognized expert in developing new treatments for upper gastrointestinal cancers. “We are seeing encouraging clinical efficacy signals in a heavily pretreated heterogeneous population of patients with advanced cancer.”

DF1001 has shown promise in treating different types of advanced cancers, such as breast, colorectal, lung, and gastroesophageal cancers. Even patients who have tried multiple treatments before have responded to the drug.