Pancreatic cancer pill shown to nearly double overall survival time, drug company says

(NewsNation) — A pancreatic cancer drug is showing promising signs of a possible breakthrough after a clinical trial found it nearly doubled the length of survival among patients.

In a press release Monday, Revolution Medicines shared the findings of its Phase 3 clinical trial, which evaluated the drug Daraxonrasib in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who had been previously treated.

The company reports the drug, taken orally once a day, showed “clinically meaningful improvements” in progression-free survival and overall survival compared with standard-of-care cytotoxic chemotherapy delivered intravenously. Specifically, the drug showed a median overall survival of 13.2 months compared to 6.7 months for chemotherapy.

“For patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer, new treatment options are urgently needed to increase survival time and improve quality of life,” Dr. Brian M. Wolpin, principal investigator for the RASolute 302 trial, said.

He added, “I believe that this new approach is a very important advance for the field that I expect will be practice-changing for physicians and improve the care for patients with previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer.”

The drug is designed to stop RAS mutations, which drive tumor growth and are found in 90% of pancreatic cancer cases.

According to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer remains flat at 13 percent and just 8 percent for people diagnosed with the most common form of pancreatic cancer, pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

Revolution Medicines says it intends to submit the findings of this trial to global regulatory authorities, including the Food and Drug Administration, as part of a future New Drug Application under a Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher.