My dad, Louis Tamara, died of pancreatic cancer on May 5, 2017, about six months after he got sick. He taught art to elementary and middle school students in Elmira, New York, for more than 30 years. He was a deeply philosophical and multitalented man, and also my closest friend. I’m still reflecting on what he left behind, the suffering he endured and the hope that other families might one day be spared the same ordeal.
I watched my father endure, with little complaint, suffering beyond comprehension. When people asked about his pain, he would say, “It’s really not that bad.”
On Good Friday, just weeks before he died, we watched "The Passion of the Christ.” Watching Christ’s suffering, my father turned to me and said, “And I think I’ve got it
bad!” His faith sustained him through those final months.
November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, and thousands more Americans will be diagnosed with the disease that took him. However, many of them will have something my family only dreamed of – hope.
Tango Therapeutics and Revolution Medicines are testing a combination of two daily pills, vopimetostat and daraxonrasib, in patients whose tumors carry a genetic change called an MTAP deletion. Up to 37% of pancreatic cancer patients have it. The early results are remarkable for a disease that is hard to treat. In patients whose cancer had already outlasted earlier treatment, 82% saw their tumors shrink. Nine months in, 88% were still alive with no sign their cancer had grown.
Those numbers stand out even against the best option patients have today. Daraxonrasib on its own, approved in August and sold as Rasonque, is a real advance, but the median time it took for the cancer to progress was about seven months. Researchers believe the two drugs work better together than either does alone, and patients on the combination have had milder skin and stomach side effects than is typical on Rasonque alone.
Here's why the FDA must move with urgency
My father had about six months. Most of the patients in this study have already had more than that, with their cancer held in check. I think about what that kind of time would have meant for us.
Dad was a serious gardener, and a few weeks before he died he planted his garden anyway. Why would that spring be different from the rest? With a few more months, he might have seen it come in.
That is why this combination deserves urgency. Tango says it is working with the Food and Drug Administration on a larger Phase 3 trial, and that trial must be rigorous. It also needs to move as fast as patient safety and good evidence allow. Promising therapies too often take years to reach patients, or stall when corporate strategy gets in the way of patient care. For families like mine, every delay has consequences.
The FDA has an enormous responsibility to ensure new medicines are safe within an approval process that recognizes the situation of patients with life-threatening diseases and no time, who have also exhausted existing treatments, as with pancreatic cancer. The FDA should encourage innovative clinical trials, provide timely guidance and eliminate unnecessary delays without compromising patient safety.
More broadly, America's health care system must put patients ahead of bureaucratic obstacles and corporate competition. Medical breakthroughs increasingly depend on combining promising treatments developed by different companies. In combination therapy for pancreatic cancer, Tango and Revolution have a unique opportunity to lead the way toward a new era of medical innovation, where collaboration takes precedence over competition and patients reap the benefits.
My family has turned our grief into something that will help others. Just three days after my father died, my sister launched a fundraising appeal for pancreatic cancer research through Project Purple. Later that year, she ran in the New York City Marathon, taking third place in fundraising.
I want others to have time with their loved ones
Dad was an artist. So, we turned the funeral home into a greenhouse and an art gallery for him. We divided up all of the seedlings from his garden and made them available for mourners to plant in their own yards and community gardens. We also exhibited all of his paintings at his wake and sold prints to benefit cancer research.
As a designer of traditional Roman Catholic churches, I share my father’s love of art and faith. Before he died, he inspired me to write a children’s book about losing a grandparent, which I’m now illustrating and preparing for publication as I raise my own son.
These projects remind me that our lives continue to make a difference long after we are gone. Those gestures still matter to us. But for families facing this disease, legacy is not enough. We want more time together now.
I believe that we have a responsibility to use our talents, resources and spiritual gifts to ease suffering and help others. That human goal includes the creation of new medicines.
My father’s life taught me to look beyond suffering and consider what we can do for others. This November, I’m going to spend a lot more time praying for Dad’s soul, and for the many families going through the pancreatic cancer journey that my family experienced in 2017.
The next generation of pancreatic cancer treatments offers a chance for them to enjoy what I would have liked for myself: more time with the people we love.
Michael Tamara is an architect, a husband and father.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: This cancer drug is a breakthrough. FDA must fast-track it | Opinion
