Evaluating the Efficacy of Neratinib on Live Cell HER2 Signaling Transduction Analysis Positive Triple Negative Breast

This is a prospective, single arm, open label, interventional study designed to evaluate the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy with a pan-HER inhibitor in patients with ER-/PR-/HER2-(triple-negative) invasive breast cancer who have abnormal HER2-driven signaling activity determined by the Celcuity CELx HER2 signal function (HSF) test. Patients will be required to have a prescreening research core needle biopsy to procure a fresh tumor specimen that will be sent to Celcuity for CELx HSF testing, in order to assess the status of their HER2-driven signaling activity (abnormally or normally active). While waiting for results of the CELx HSF test, patients may receive the first dose of weekly paclitaxel at the investigator's discretion. Patients whose CELx HSF test indicate they have abnormal HER2-driven signaling activity will then receive neratinib as a single agent daily for 21 days and then neratinib plus paclitaxel and carboplatin. The primary endpoint of the study is to evaluate whether patients with triple-negative breast cancers (estrogen (ER) and progesterone (PR) receptors \< 10%; HER2-negative per standard ASCO/CAP testing criteria), but with abnormal HER2-driven signaling pathways determined by the Celcuity CELx HSF assay, and who receive HER2-targeted therapy with neoadjuvant chemotherapy will have a higher rate of pathological complete response (pCR) in the breast and lymph nodes (pCR breast and lymph nodes) than has been found historically in patients with triple-negative breast cancer who have received neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Secondary endpoints include pathologic complete response (breast), clinical complete response (cCR), residual cancer burden (RCB) 0-1 index, and relationship between quantitative CELx score and pCR rate. It is expected that approximately 135 patients will need to be prescreened in order to enroll 27 patients who have abnormal HER2-driven signaling activity.