New Pancreatic Cancer Pill Shows 90% Control Rate in Trial

A breakthrough pill for pancreatic cancer is stunning researchers with results that could transform treatment for one of the deadliest cancers.

Daraxonrasib, a daily pill tested on 168 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, helped control the disease in about 90% of participants. The drug works by blocking cancer signals linked to the RAS gene, which carries harmful mutations in more than 90% of pancreatic cancers.

The clinical trial, led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, studied patients who had already tried at least one chemotherapy treatment. At the 300-milligram dose planned for larger trials, about 30% of patients saw their tumors shrink.

What makes daraxonrasib different from older drugs is its ability to target multiple types of RAS mutations common in pancreatic cancer. Previous medications only worked on specific mutation types that rarely appear in this disease.

Dr. Brian Wolpin, director of the Hale Family Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber, called it "one of the most promising therapy advances we've seen in pancreatic cancer." He noted that pancreatic cancer has had very few effective therapies in the past.

The drug did cause side effects in many patients, including rash, mouth inflammation, nausea, and diarrhea. However, most patients managed these symptoms with supportive care, and very few had to stop treatment because of them.

Dr. Brian Slomovitz from Mount Sinai Medical Center, who wasn't involved in the study, said the results could be groundbreaking. "Doubling the survival time in pretreated patients is unprecedented," he said.

The Bright Side

This trial marks the first time a drug targeting these specific cancer signals has shown broad success in pancreatic cancer patients. If the drug succeeds in larger trials, it would become a treatment option for nearly all patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

The research team emphasizes that daraxonrasib is still investigational and not yet a cure. The study didn't directly compare the drug to standard chemotherapy, so researchers can't definitively prove it's better than current treatments.

Scientists also need to learn more about how the drug might work earlier in the disease, since this trial only included patients who had already received other treatments. Future research will explore the best ways to combine or sequence different therapies.

For families facing pancreatic cancer, this represents real progress toward more effective treatments. The scientific community is watching closely as larger trials move forward to confirm these promising early results.