Hamza Tanveer, Doctor Of Pharmacy, Intern At WHO, NIH, Pam shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Why does breast cancer still find a way? even after our best treatments...
In oncology, we’ve made real progress over the years, but some patterns have remained stubbornly unchanged.
One of them is how we treat HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer, the most common subtype. On paper, the standard approach has been solid:
Hormone therapy + CDK4/6 inhibitors.
And for many patients, it does work… at least initially.
But if you look a little closer, especially at the ~40% of patients with a PIK3CA mutation, a different story starts to emerge:
– The response doesn’t last as long as we’d hope.
– Resistance develops quietly in the background.
– And within months, the disease finds a way around the treatment.
It’s like we’ve been following a protocol that works… but not well enough for a large group of patients.
This is exactly the gap the INAVO120 Phase III trial (2025-2026 data) tried to address.
Instead of accepting resistance as inevitable, it asked: Can we prevent it from happening in the first place?
So researchers moved from the traditional ‘double therapy’ to a more strategic triple combination:
– Inavolisib (targets the PI3K pathway directly).
– Palbociclib (CDK4/6 inhibitor).
– Fulvestrant (hormone therapy).
And the results genuinely shift the conversation:
– Progression-Free Survival: 15.0 vs 7.3 months.
– 57% reduction in risk of progression.
– Higher tumor response rates across the board.
This isn’t just an improvement; in fact, it’s a doubling of disease control time.
Do you know why this matters mostly? For:
– Potential new first-line standard for PIK3CA-mutated patients.
– Early genetic testing (NGS) becomes essential, not optional.
– More manageable toxicity profile compared to older PI3K inhibitors.
We’re entering a phase where treatment isn’t just about controlling disease, but it’s about outsmarting it early.
Because sometimes, the real breakthrough isn’t a stronger drug…it’s a smarter strategy.
What’s your take?
Incredible data coming out of the INAVO 120 trial. Huge congratulations to the teams at Genentech Genentech Medical and Roche for advancing the care of PIK3CA-mutated breast cancer. Also, a shoutout to the researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust for their leadership in this pivotal study.
Reference: Jurasz, J., et al. (2025). Inavolisib-based therapy in PIK3CA-mutated advanced breast cancer: Phase III INAVO120 Results.
- The New England Journal of Medicine.
- DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2404032.”
Other articles about Breast Cancer on OncoDaily.