How an “impossible” idea led to a breakthrough in pancreatic cancer
And with the protein targeting strategy now showing promise, several companies have entered the fray. Dozens of similar drugs are currently being tested against pancreatic, lung and colon cancer.
The drug that opened the floodgates, daraxonrasib, has been fast-tracked by the Food and Drug Administration and could receive approval as soon as this year. Until then, the agency has agreed to a plan by Revolution Medicines, the small Silicon Valley company developing the drug, to provide early access to some patients.
The pill taken three times a day is not a cure – at some point daraxonrasib stops working. Many patients do not respond. And it has side effects that can be serious, including rash, diarrhea, fatigue, nausea and rough, split fingertips.
However, until now, patients with pancreatic cancer have typically been offered strenuous chemotherapy that does little to prolong life.
The pancreas is a gland deep in the abdomen that helps regulate blood sugar and digestion. Only 3 percent of these patients with cancer that has spread to distant parts of the body are still alive after five years. The disease kills more than 50,000 Americans each year.
Revolution tested daraxonrasib in a late-stage clinical trial in patients with metastatic cancer who had already tried chemotherapy. For these patients, further treatment was viewed as “Hail Mary.”
Patients who received the drug lived an average of over 13 months, compared to less than seven months for patients who received chemotherapy, the company said in a news release.
Researchers will present the findings at a major cancer conference in Chicago later this month. The study has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
Scientists say the drug could be the cancer equivalent of breaking the four-minute mile. “It is the beginning, not the end,” said Dr. Elizabeth Jaffee, a pancreatic cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins University.
