New pancreatic cancer drug, daraxonrasib, under the brand name Rasonque
US FDA approves breakthrough pancreatic cancer drug
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- A new drug offers a major breakthrough for pancreatic cancer.
- The treatment targets mutations driving tumor growth.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Wednesday a breakthrough targeted treatment for pancreatic cancer that nearly doubled overall patient survival times in clinical trials, offering a major new option against one of the world's most fatal cancers.
The oral medication, daraxonrasib, developed by Revolution Medicines and marketed under the brand name Rasonque, blocks mutated proteins driving tumor progression in over 90 percent of pancreatic cancer cases.
A late-stage clinical trial involving 500 patients demonstrated that a daily dose of daraxonrasib extended median overall survival to 13.2 months, compared to 6.7 months for patients receiving standard chemotherapy regimens.
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Targeting mutations
Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to detect early, with over half of diagnosed patients dying within three months of detection.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 67,000 people in the United States are diagnosed annually with the disease, which maintains the highest mortality rate among major cancers.
Daraxonrasib works by locking onto and deactivating the mutated KRAS gene, a key driver of pancreatic tumor growth long considered "undruggable" by medical researchers.
In clinical trials, 44 percent of patients on daraxonrasib experienced severe side effects. primarily rash, diarrhea, nausea, fatigue, and vomiting, compared to 57.5 percent among those receiving conventional chemotherapy.
