The new drug offering hope for pancreatic cancer patients

Health & Fitness
8 May 2026 • 12:27 AM MYT
The Independent
The Independent

The world’s most free-thinking newspaper

The new drug offering hope for pancreatic cancer patients

  • The drug, daraxonrasib, has shown the potential to nearly double the survival time for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.
  • Pancreatic cancer is often diagnosed at advanced stages, with over 90 per cent of patients having KRAS genetic mutations previously considered untreatable.
  • An early-phase clinical trial involving 38 patients found that daraxonrasib increased overall survival to 15.6 months, compared to 6.7 months with standard chemotherapy.
  • The drug, a RAS inhibitor, targets mutated KRAS genes, which are frequently found in pancreatic, lung, and colorectal cancers, putting them into a dormant state.
  • Researchers believe daraxonrasib could represent a significant advancement in treating pancreatic cancer, with further, larger clinical trials currently underway.

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