Shares of Oncolytics (ONCY) ended the day up 16.7% after the company announced positive phase 2 results for its drug Reolysin in patients with Pancreatic Cancer. The trial enrolled 34 patients in total but only 29 were evaluated for efficacy for this phase 2 efficacy announcement. The phase 2 trial was known as REO 017 and this trial was run as a single-arm study to determine the Clinical Benefit Rate -- CBR -- and Progression-free survival -- PFS -- rate. 

The 34 patients enrolled in the study were given intravenous administration of Oncolytic's drug Reolysin in combination with gemcitabine -- normal chemotherapy drug -- in patients who are chemotherapy-naive with advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer. "Chemotherapy-naive" that means that these patients have not previously taken chemotherapy. 

Therefore Oncolytics was establishing its drug Reolysin in combination with gemcitabine to see if the combination could elicit a good efficacy response. That's exactly what happened because this combination was able to see a high CBR rate and good PFS rate. For instance the CBR rate was at 83% and consists of 29 patients who had: partial response -- 1, stable disease - 23, and progressive disease 5. This means that this trial met the primary endpoint .

The secondary endpoint evaluated median PFS of the combination drug as compared to historical control treatment of gemcitabine alone against metastatic pancreatic cancer. Median PFS for gemcitabine alone is 3.3 months and the combination drug of Reolysin together with gemcitabine established 4 months. Thus the PFS in the combination arm beating the historical control arm. 

Other exploratory efficacy endpoints were improved as well which is quite remarkable. For instance typical 1-year survival for these patients taking historical control gemcitabine alone is between 20% to 22%. Patients who took Reolysin in combo with gemcitabine saw a 1-year survival rate of 45%. That's incredible because that' is just about doubling the survival rate for these patients in a 1-year period. 

In addition 2-year survival rate for advanced pancreatic cancer patients under normal historical control treatments are between 2% to 5%. Patients in this study who took Reolysin in combo with gemcitabine saw their 2-year survival increase to 24%. That's even better than the 1-year improvement because that is a 5 times increase in survival rate as compared to historical control. We think that Oncolytics has a very bright future in these patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.