Two New Drugs Offer Hope for Pancreatic Cancer

Revolution Medicines’ results came from a Phase III trial, and Goldsmith says the company plans to submit them to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a request to approve the drug. Revolution Medicines was also the first cancer company to receive a Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher for a cancer drug, which means the FDA will review the application and provide a decision on an expedited timeline. Actuate’s study is an earlier stage Phase II trial, and the company plans to continue studying and testing the drug in more patients.

Taken together, the results provide much-needed hope for the pancreatic cancer community, which hasn’t had as many options as patients with other types of cancer. Immune-based therapies and personalized treatments based on genetic mutations found in a person's tumor, for example, have not worked well against pancreatic cancer. Despite the seemingly small improvement in survival time, such advances are the first step toward more meaningful benefits for pancreatic cancer patients. Dr. Eileen O'Reilly, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center who was involved with the studies on daraxonrasib, says the encouraging findings about daraxonrasib "hopefully set the stage for building on targeted therapy as a major backbone for the treatment of pancreas cancer, and a key goal now is to build and extend these results in all stages."