A new pill helped people with advanced pancreatic cancer live longer, researchers reported this Sunday (05/31/2026), raising hopes for better treatments for one of the deadliest types of cancer.

“It doesn’t cure cancer, but it’s a very important step forward,” said Dr. Zev Wainberg of the University of California, Los Angeles, who co-led the study.

The drug is called daraxonrasib and it blocks a mutated protein that drives tumor growth in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases, a therapeutic target that had eluded treatments for decades.

A drug that almost doubles survival

Daily pills almost doubled survival time, with fewer serious side effects, in a study that randomly assigned the experimental drug or more chemotherapy to 500 patients with metastatic – that is, spreading – cancer who had stopped responding to previous treatments.

The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented Sunday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago.

Those who took daraxonrasib lived a median of 13.2 months, compared with 6.7 months in the chemotherapy group. Although the difference may seem modest, Wainberg noted that it is the first drug to demonstrate a substantial advantage over chemotherapy.

“Having treated pancreatic cancer for 16 years, I cried” when I first saw the study results, Dr. Rachna Shroff of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, who was not involved in the research, said from the ASCO meeting.

He was impressed that “patients stayed on this treatment because it gave them a lasting and significant benefit.”

The effect of the pills eventually wears off, but those who took them used them for a significantly longer period than the comparison group remained on chemotherapy, and reported less pain and better quality of life as their tumors shrank.

Many were still using the drug when the data were analyzed, which Wainberg said indicates the survival gap may widen as researchers continue to follow.

Dr. Brian Wolpin of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute presented the findings Sunday. He said the drug should become “a new standard of care” for previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer, adding that researchers will also explore its use in earlier stages of the disease, including to determine whether tumor shrinkage could make more patients candidates for surgery.

The side effects most likely to affect use of the pill are a rash that can become severe and mouth sores, he said.

The Revolution Medicines laboratory funded the study and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to expedite its review of the drug. In the meantime, the agency is allowing what it calls “expanded access” to the experimental drug for patients who meet certain criteria.

The drug gained public attention when former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse described on 60 Minutes how he has experienced less pain since taking it. Oncologists are being inundated with applications as the special access program begins to operate.

Pancreatic cancer, one of the most lethal

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, largely because it is difficult to detect before it begins to spread to other organs.

The American Cancer Society estimates that about 67,000 new cases will be diagnosed in the United States this year and that more than 52,000 people will die from the disease. The overall five-year survival rate is 13%.

Unlike other cancers that have benefited from various alternatives to chemotherapy, pancreatic cancer has been more difficult to address.

Oncology specialists outside the research expressed optimism that this marks a turning point in the search for new options, with dozens of experimental drugs in development.

The new drug acts on mutations in the RAS gene family, which normally regulates cell growth. The so-called KRAS mutations are especially decisive in driving pancreatic cancer.

However, a structure that made it difficult for drugs to attach to the mutated proteins had long meant this cancer driver was considered pharmacologically “untreatable.”

How daraxonrasib acts on KRAS mutations

Revolution Medicines’ drug uses what is essentially molecular glue to bind to multiple KRAS subtypes. Wainberg said researchers will next look at whether the drug worked better in some of those subtypes.

The drug will transform the treatment of pancreatic cancer, said Dr. Andrew Coveler of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, who was also not involved in the research.

“This mechanism works in a radically different way,” he said.

Wainberg noted that other drugs in development target specific KRAS subtypes. Other approaches in earlier phases of evaluation include vaccines designed to prevent recurrence after pancreatic cancer surgery by teaching the immune system to recognize the mutated protein.

FEW (AP, New England Journal of Medicine)