Pancreatic cancer, despite being put in the spotlight for claiming the life of technology icon Steve Jobs in 2011, has remained one the most critical health burdens worldwide, with no definite cure in sight.

Reported to account for 4 percent of cancer deaths worldwide, or 330,000 people, pancreatic cancer is touted as the seventh most common cause of death from cancer. It is considered one of the most deadly cancers due to its late detection and resistance to available standard-of-care therapy.

Seeking to discover an effective, urgently needed medicine directed against pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim has forged a partnership with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to develop innovative medicines for the disease.

With the collaboration, MD Anderson brings to the table its unique understanding of potential biological drivers of PDAC. Boehringer Ingelheim, meanwhile, will contribute its experience in drug discovery and development.

Their partnership will focus on identifying and developing therapeutic concepts in novel target areas. They also hope to identify biomarkers that can accurately identify patients who would respond to potential new therapies.

“We are excited to be able to work with the leading cancer research and care institution in the world to develop therapies for patients with this devastating cancer,” said Dr Michel Pairet, senior corporate vice president of research and non-clinical development at Boehringer Ingelheim.

He said the partnership is a perfect match because it combines MD Anderson’s outstanding capabilities in preclinical concept validation and clinical testing with Boehringer Ingelheim’s strength in developing innovative medicines in novel target spaces such as epigenetics.

“At MD Anderson, we have created integrated platforms that enable the discovery of more effective therapeutics for cancer patients,” said Timothy Heffernan, Ph.D., executive director and co-leader for MD Anderson’s Center for Co-Clinical Trials.

This alliance combines MD Anderson’s expertise in cancer genetics and translational medicine with outstanding drug discovery and development, and it has great potential in effecting changes regarding devastating diseases like pancreatic cancer, according to Heffernan.

In November 2015, researchers at the University of Chicago said they found a new test to quickly detect pancreatic cancer, as reported by NDTV. According to the study, by collecting samples from the portal vein, physicians can learn far more about a patient's pancreatic cancer than by relying on peripheral blood from a more easily accessed vein in the arm. Portal vein carries blood from the gastrointestinal tract, including from the pancreas, to the liver.

To test their theory, the researchers used an ultrasound-guided endoscope and a small needle to take blood from the portal vein during routine diagnostic endoscopies. They found circulating tumour cells in 100 percent of 18 patients with suspected tumours in the pancreas and bile ducts. Tests using peripheral blood samples, the standard method, detected tumour cells in only four of the 18 patients.

The team said their findings could offer doctors a method to diagnose pancreatic cancer earlier in patients.

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