As announced on October 2, 2009, SciClone has discontinued its phase 2 trial of RP101 in late-stage pancreatic cancer. For more details, please see our press release.

Until discontinued as noted above, SciClone was conducting a phase 2 pancreatic cancer trial for RP101, a nucleoside analog which may act to enhance the beneficial effects of chemotherapy by reducing chemoresistance, the tumor's ability to defend itself against successive dosing under a chemotherapeutic regimen.

In this multi-center, randomized, double-blinded, placebo controlled trial, we were examining the effect of RP101 used with gemcitabine, the standard of care . In a previous phase 1 study, RP101 as an additive therapy to gemcitabine resulted in patient survival of 9.3 months which compares favorably to published median survival of about 6 months when pancreatic cancer is treated with gemcitabine alone. RP101 has been granted Orphan Drug Designation for the adjunct treatment of pancreatic cancer by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

About Pancreatic Cancer

The American Cancer Society estimates that, in 2009, approximately 33,000 deaths will occur in the U.S. from pancreatic cancer . Pancreatic cancer is difficult to diagnose in its early stages and typically diagnosed only after the cancer has metastasized to other areas of the body, resulting in 6 month median survival for patients treated with gemcitabine chemotherapy.

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