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One of the most important numbers when talking about a cancer treatment, maybe even the most important to many, is the OS (Overall Survival). How much did the treatment prolong life for the patient?
DRTS is a revolutionary cancer treatment, without getting too deep into it, what’s important to know is that it’s physics based and tumor agnostic, so the company is going for the hardest to treat and most high unmet needs cancer cases.
DRTS has amazing numbers across the board, including just this week they shared 100% DCR (Disease Control Rate) in pancreatic cancer, [have a publication in JAMA with 100% complete response rate in cSCC](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2804784), have a GBM results readout coming up and more.
But one number that seems to be missing is the OS. Even if you ask your favorite AI what’s the OS for DRTS in Pancreatic Cancer, it probably won’t be able to tell you any actual numbers.
Is that because they don’t have the numbers? Maybe they are hiding them? Well neither, you just got to dig a bit deeper to find them, as they aren’t ready to be announced yet (sorry in advance for the spoiler).
To my understanding there could be two reasons these numbers weren’t announced yet:
The first is because to have OS numbers you need the patients to stop surviving (and the SLS crowd will know what I mean). Many of the patients treated were still alive when these numbers were measured, so they are only temporary and should get better with every additional day the patients hopefully live.
The second is that these are safety and feasibility studies, meaning:
A. These are the hardest cases to begin with
B. These patients have already had (multiple) different options fail, which should tell you both how hard the cases are and how worn out their body and immune system are
C. A long time had passed since diagnosis, so the cancer progressed and got worse and the life expectancy is drastically shorter
D. The DRTS treatment had partial tumor volume coverage, they only treated part of the tumor (essentially like not using the full dose of medicine)
In other words, the OS numbers exist, but they could (and should) be much higher when DRTS actually treats patients (not just a safety study, and also a larger sample size) and especially if they are earlier in the process, which is exactly the case with the ongoing US FDA IMPACT trial that just got approved for expansion.
Now let’s get into the numbers. The Median OS of the DRTS Pancreatic Cancer patients since diagnosis / initiation of last chemotherapy, was 18.6 months with 60% of patients still alive.
In key subpopulations, for example newly diagnosed / not eligible for chemotherapy, the median OS was not reached ("too many" patients still survived) but the median follow up was 6.3 months with 50% of the patients still alive, compared to the historical benchmark of \~3.0 months without chemo.
Another example is Metastatic (Stage IV) patients after 1L FOLFIRINOX, with a median follow up of 15.1 months, 80% of patients still alive, compared to historical FOLFIRINOX medians of \~11.1 months.
In another subpopulation, the median OS of DRTS is 23 months with 42% of patients still alive, more than double the number of the other options.
For context, RVMD has added (ADDED!) 10 Billion in market cap after they demonstrated a median OS of 13.2 months versus 6.7 for chemotherapy.
Of course it’s not a perfect comparison, but DRTS with these (unannounced) numbers, and achievements on all fronts and across many indications, including marketing approval in Japan, an approved and commercial ready manufacturing facility in New Hampshire, 55+ clinical locations worldwide and so much more, is still trading under 1 Billion in market cap.
NFA and DYOR, of course many of the regular biotech risks (needing funding like oxygen, numbers not holding up etc) still exist, and I have a large long position myself, but I believe DRTS is still an uncovered gem with how unknown their numbers and potential impact really are.