OCRA Funded Study Aims to Increase Efficacy of PARP Inhibitors

(March 20, 2019) The Ovarian Cancer Dream Team, funded in part by OCRA, recently completed a Phase 1b Trial, which combined a PARP inhibitor with an HRR (homologous recombination repair) pathway inhibitor, such as PI3K, in order to increase the efficacy of PARP inhibitors in breast and epithelial ovarian cancers. Phase 1 trials are used to understand both the amount of a drug that can be tolerated by the patient (dose escalation) and to increase the number of patients exposed to the drug (dose expansion). Patients in this trial were given olaparib, a PARP inhibitor, and alpelisib (a PI3K inhibitor) to find the appropriate level of each drug and to look at preliminary results.

At the end of the trial, researchers concluded that the drug combination had no unexpected side effects and that the positive effect of the drugs warranted the Phase II portion of the study. The study, although no longer accepting patients, can be found here on clinicaltrials.gov.