Daily Pill Doubles Survival Time for Pancreatic Cancer

When Dr. Rachna Shroff read the trial results, she started crying in her clinic. After 16 years treating pancreatic cancer, she had just witnessed something she never thought possible.

A new daily pill called daraxonrasib doubled how long patients with advanced pancreatic cancer survived. In a trial of 500 patients presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting in Chicago, those taking the drug lived an average of 13.2 months compared to just 6.6 months for those on standard chemotherapy.

Even better, patients experienced fewer side effects than traditional treatment. Dr. Julie Gralow, ASCO's chief medical officer, didn't call it a home run. She called it a grand slam.

Pancreatic cancer kills more people than almost any other cancer, and treatments haven't meaningfully improved in decades. The five-year survival rate for advanced cases sits at just three percent, and more than half of patients aren't diagnosed until the disease has already spread.

The villain behind most cases is a gene called KRAS. Over 90 percent of pancreatic cancer patients carry a mutation that keeps telling cells to grow when they should stop dividing.

Scientists have been trying to block KRAS since the 1980s. The gene has no obvious pocket where drug molecules can attach, so researchers labeled it undruggable and largely gave up.

Daraxonrasib works differently. It glues molecules together to grip and completely shut down the KRAS protein, cutting off the growth signal entirely. Unlike earlier drugs that only worked on specific mutations, this one works regardless of which variant a patient carries.

The Ripple Effect

Half of all people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer die within three months. Paula Hanford, chief executive of Pancreatic Cancer Action, called the trial one of the most significant treatment developments she has seen. "For far too long, people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer have had incredibly limited treatment options and survival rates that have remained devastatingly low," she said.

The impact could extend far beyond pancreatic cancer. KRAS mutations appear in roughly a third of all human tumors, including lung and colon cancers. Similar drugs are already in trials for those diseases, and daraxonrasib's success gives the entire approach something it desperately needed: proof that it actually works.

Anna Jewell, director at Pancreatic Cancer UK, captured what matters most: "More time with those we love most is truly priceless."