Two months ago we wrote about daraxonrasib, a new drug targeting RAS, the biological driver behind the vast majority of pancreatic cancer cases.
Since then, the story has become even more interesting.
The full results of the large phase III trial have now been presented at the ASCO cancer congress and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
And the results are remarkable.
In patients with previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer, median survival increased from 6.7 months with traditional chemotherapy to 13.2 months with daraxonrasib.
That corresponds to a 60% lower risk of dying during the study period. The time before the cancer started growing again roughly doubled as well. On top of that, the treatment caused fewer serious treatment-related side effects than chemotherapy.
This is still not a cure. And daraxonrasib is not yet approved. But for one of our very hardest cancers, this is genuinely good news.
For decades, KRAS/RAS was considered essentially impossible to target with drugs. We now have a randomized phase III trial showing that it can be done, and that it can make a meaningful difference for patients.
The FDA has also already opened so-called "expanded access" for certain patients in the US while the drug is being evaluated for possible approval.
Two months ago we wrote that this might be the beginning of a breakthrough. Today it feels far less like a "might".
