Salivary Gland Cancer Treatment Shows Promise: Actuate Therapeutics Unveils Phase II Trial Breakthrough

Actuate Therapeutics, Inc. (ACTU) unveiled encouraging clinical data this week from its Phase II investigation into elraglusib when combined with standard chemotherapy agents carboplatin or cisplatin for treating advanced metastatic salivary gland cancers. The trial population consisted of 47% adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) patients alongside 53% participants with other salivary gland cancer subtypes.

The therapeutic approach demonstrated substantial survival benefits. Across the 47-patient cohort, median overall survival reached 18.6 months, with 58% of participants still alive after 12 months and 40% surviving to the 2-year mark. When examining the non-ACC population separately, median overall survival extended to 27.8 months, suggesting differential efficacy across tumor classifications.

Progression-free survival metrics proved particularly noteworthy when contextualized against existing treatment standards. The elraglusib combination achieved a median PFS of 6.4 months, with 27% of patients maintaining progression-free status at one year. This contrasts with previous outcome benchmarks showing 49-month median PFS for ACC patients and less than 6-month survival for non-ACC populations historically treated with conventional approaches—indicating a meaningful shift in the therapeutic landscape for adenoid cystic carcinoma and related malignancies.

The trial findings were published in Clinical Cancer Research, lending further scientific validation to the investigational approach. Market sentiment responded positively to the announcement, with Actuate stock advancing 4% during pre-market sessions following Friday’s close of $7.52, which itself represented a 1.35% weekly gain.