This article looks at a new, targeted chemotherapy delivery system being tested at Miami Cancer Institute and Baptist Health Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute by RenovoRx, following 83-year-old Hernando Salcedo’s experience and comments from Shaun Bagai and Dr. Ripal Gandhi about the Trans-Arterial Micro-Perfusion platform and the Phase III TIGeR-PaC trial in locally advanced pancreatic cancer.
Chemotherapy can save lives, but most people who have watched a loved one endure it know how brutal the side effects can be. Nausea, fatigue and infections often come from drugs circulating through the whole body rather than focusing on the tumor. That is the core problem the RenovoRx platform is trying to solve with a localized approach.
RenovoRx uses an FDA-cleared catheter called RenovoCath to deliver chemotherapy directly near the tumor through an artery. Shaun Bagai, CEO of RenovoRx, explained how the device works. “Once in position, two small balloons on the catheter are inflated, and the system is adjusted to isolate a targeted segment of artery adjacent to a tumor,” Bagai said. “The chemotherapy drug is then infused between the balloons, creating pressure to push the drug across the vessel wall and near the tumor, directly bathing the target tumor.”
The procedure is minimally invasive and is usually done without general anesthesia, which can be less overwhelming for patients already coping with pain and exhaustion. It’s designed to concentrate treatment in one spot and reduce how much chemotherapy reaches the rest of the body. For many patients, that difference is not just clinical—it affects daily life and quality of life.
Dr. Ripal Gandhi, a vascular interventional radiologist and interventional oncologist at Baptist Health Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute and Miami Cancer Institute, lays out the logic behind the approach. “With IV chemotherapy, the drug travels through the bloodstream, affecting both cancerous and healthy cells, which can lead to side effects,” Dr. Gandhi said. He added that tumors like those in pancreatic cancer have few blood vessels and dense stroma, which blocks conventional drugs from reaching the cells.
Dr. Gandhi compared it to “a drip irrigation system for individual plants instead of watering an entire lawn.” By pushing chemo across the vessel wall and right next to the tumor, TAMP aims to give higher local doses without the same systemic toll. “This targeted approach via TAMP does not rely on chemotherapy circulating through the body to carry the drug to the tumor via tumor feeder vessels,” Dr. Gandhi said.
Hernando Salcedo’s story shows the human side of the trial. Diagnosed with locally advanced pancreatic cancer, he began standard chemotherapy and radiation a decade ago and felt drained by the side effects. “The difference was tremendous,” Hernando said. “I completed eight sessions, one every 15 days, and I felt dramatically better than I did with the original chemotherapy.”
Hernando described how the shift in treatment restored appetite, color and energy. “Before, I was losing weight, had no appetite and felt drained,” Hernando said. “After switching treatments, things began to change. I stopped losing weight, my appetite came back, my color improved and I had more energy.” He credited Dr. Gandhi and the Miami team for clear communication and support. “From the beginning, he was honest, supportive and clear with my wife, my family and me,” Hernando said.
Small, human victories matter. After about two months of the localized approach, Hernando felt better enough to attend and dance at a family wedding. “That moment meant everything to me,” he said. “After everything I had been through, being able to celebrate with my family in that way felt like a gift.” Those regained moments are central to why patients and clinicians explore alternatives to standard IV chemo.
Clinical data from RenovoRx’s Phase III TIGeR-PaC trial offer early signals that the approach could help some patients. “In the initial interim analysis of the TIGeR-PaC clinical trial, there was a trend towards improved overall survival by 6 months and improvement in the progression free survival by 8.1 months with 65% fewer adverse events in the TAMP arm of the study,” Dr. Gandhi said. Those findings remain interim, but they point to both tolerability and potential survival benefits.
This treatment won’t suit every patient. Tumor stage, location, prior therapy and whether cancer has spread all factor into who might benefit. “He is precisely the type of patient who would benefit best from this approach because he has a tumor which is too far advanced to be treated surgically, but it has not spread to other organs,” Dr. Gandhi said.
Bagai said RenovoRx is pursuing broader applications beyond pancreatic cancer, because the challenge of poor tumor blood supply is common in other solid tumors. “If positive, data generated from this trial could potentially support a new drug application for this combination product to the FDA for IAG,” Bagai said. “The challenge we are addressing is not unique to pancreatic cancer,” Bagai said. “The platform is designed to work with different types of therapies, not just one drug,” Bagai said. “That opens the door to future combinations and potential partnerships, with the goal of expanding options for patients who have limited treatment choices.”
Enrollment in TIGeR-PaC is ongoing, with companies and clinicians watching final results that could arrive later this decade. For patients facing limited options or harsh side effects from systemic chemo, clinical trials and targeted delivery methods are worth discussing with their care teams. “TAMP can be used at any point within the treatment landscape, before, during or after other treatment modalities such as IV chemotherapy or radiation,” he said.
