FDA Orphan Drug Designation Granted to Batiraxcept for the Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer

“Receiving Orphan Drug Designation is another important milestone for batiraxcept, and it underscores the significant unmet medical need in patients with pancreatic cancer, typically diagnosed at an incurable advanced stage with a 5-year survival rate of 11%1,” said Gail McIntyre, Ph.D., DABT, Chief Executive Officer of Aravive. “Three patients from our P1b trial are still responding to treatment with 15mg/kg batiraxcept, gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel after 1 year and one patient has a confirmed complete response. Consistent with our other clinical trials, we noted a relationship between clinical activity and batiraxcept drug levels, however highly fibrotic tumors like PDAC may require more batiraxcept than platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and clear cell renal cell cancer patients to reach the appropriate batiraxcept drug levels. Due to this characteristic of pancreatic cancer, we are testing higher doses of batiraxcept to see if we can increase the proportion of patients who benefit from the triplet regimen.”