{"id":613666,"date":"2026-09-04T00:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T00:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/613666\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T00:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T00:26:11","slug":"pancreatic-cancer-new-fda-approved-drug-doubles-survival-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/613666\/","title":{"rendered":"Pancreatic Cancer: New FDA-Approved Drug Doubles Survival Rates"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RasonqueShare on Pinterest<\/a>The FDA approved Rasonque (daraxonrasib), a groundbreaking new drug to treat metastatic pancreatic cancer. Photo courtesy of Revolution MedicinesThe FDA approved Rasonque, a new drug to treat the most common type of pancreatic cancer.A clinical trial found that those who received Rasonque had more than double the average survival rate: around 13 months compared to just over 6 months with chemotherapy alone.Pancreatic cancer was the sixth most common cause of cancer-related death globally in 2024. <\/p>\n

A groundbreaking new drug has ushered in a new era of treatment for a deadly form of prostate cancer.<\/p>\n

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved<\/a> a new drug, Rasonque (daraxonrasib), on August 26, to treat pancreatic adenocarcinoma, the most common type of pancreatic cancer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pancreatic cancer was ranked the 12th most common cancer<\/a> in 2024, with more than 530,000 estimated diagnoses globally. It is the sixth most common cause of cancer-related death, contributing to more than 490,000 deaths.<\/p>\n

The new drug targets a specific protein known to drive pancreatic cancer tumor growth. <\/p>\n

The medication is for people with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma<\/a> \u2014 meaning the cancer has moved outside the pancreas<\/a> to other parts of the body \u2014 who have previously received systemic therapy for their cancer, such as chemotherapy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The FDA approval is based on the results of a Phase 3 clinical trial<\/a> for Rasonque, in which study participants receiving Rasonque had an average survival of 13.2 months, compared with 6.7 months with chemotherapy alone. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is probably the most exciting study that has been reported in pancreas cancer in the last 30, 40 years, if not forever,\u201d said Anton Bilchik<\/a>, MD, PhD, surgical oncologist, chief of medicine, and director of the Gastrointestinal and Hepatobiliary Program at Providence Saint John\u2019s Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, CA.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s truly astonishing that such patients with advanced pancreas cancer, who have a very poor outcome, can get a pill after they have failed first-line chemotherapy and have a doubling of survival, compared with those patients that just got standard chemotherapy,\u201d Bilchik told Healthline.<\/p>\n

Rasonque is a drug that targets a family of genes<\/a> called RAS.<\/p>\n

\u201cRAS is a driver of pancreas cancer,\u201d Bilchik said. \u201cRAS is present in more than 90%<\/a> of the most common pancreas cancer, which is adenocarcinoma. RAS drives the change in cells from normal to abnormal, to becoming cancer.\u201d <\/p>\n

Rosario Ligresti<\/a>, MD, chief of gastroenterology at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, said that these mutated proteins typically send continuous, uncontrolled growth signals to cancer cells. They have historically been \u201cundruggable\u201d due to their hard-to-bind surfaces, Ligresti explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cRasonque overcomes this by acting as a \u2018molecular glue\u2019 that first attaches to an abundant cellular chaperone protein called cyclophilin A<\/a>,\u201d he told Healthline.<\/p>\n

Ligresti said this newly formed drug-chaperone complex perfectly conforms to the active RAS protein, locking together to create a \u201ctri-complex\u201d that physically blocks RAS from interacting with its downstream signaling partners. <\/p>\n

\u201cBy effectively neutralizing a broad spectrum of these active RAS mutations rather than just one specific variant, Rasonque cuts off the continuous cancer-driving signals, halting tumor growth and ultimately causing the cancer cells to die,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kyaw Lwin Aung<\/a>, MD, a medical oncologist at Baptist Health Herbert Wertheim Cancer Institute, noted that prior to Rasonque, the first-line treatment for pancreatic cancer was chemotherapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow with Rasonque, we have a new targeted therapy that is much more effective than chemotherapy,\u201d Aung told Healthline.<\/p>\n

\u201cRasonque is a convenient, once-daily oral pill that provides targeted therapy by directly shutting down the specific RAS mutations driving the disease,\u201d Ligresti said. \u201cRasonque is uniquely \u2018multi-selective,\u2019 successfully neutralizing the mutations responsible for over 90% of pancreatic tumors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy replacing highly toxic, \u2018scattergun\u2019 chemotherapy with a highly precise mechanism, Rasonque nearly doubles overall survival to 13.2 months while simultaneously sparing patients from grueling side effects and vastly improving their daily quality of life,\u201d Ligresti continued.<\/p>\n

Aung was a study author of the Phase 1-2 study<\/a> for Rasonque, which evaluated the drug\u2019s safety and side effects. <\/p>\n

Some of the most common side effects of Rasonque may include: <\/p>\n

skin rashsore mouth (mucositis<\/a>)nauseadiarrheafatigue<\/p>\n

\u201cThe survival improvement achieved with Rasonque is unprecedented in the treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer,\u201d Aung said. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery metastatic pancreatic cancer patient should be considered for this treatment unless there are serious medical and\/or other factors that prohibit prescribing. Patients should have prophylactic treatment for rash. They should be monitored closely for effective management of side effects so that patients can be maintained on the effective dose of Rasonque,\u201d Aung continued.<\/p>\n

Experts say there are questions about Rasonque that may need to be answered. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe obvious question [is] if someone is diagnosed with advanced pancreas cancer and they\u2019re given this drug up front, will it have an even better effect and less toxicity than standard chemotherapy?\u201d Bilchik said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next question is what about patients that are potentially resectable<\/a>,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd that\u2019s by far the minority of patients with pancreas cancer, because by the time they present with symptoms, [they] already have advanced; their cancers have already spread. What if this drug is given up front, even before surgery \u2014 will it prolong survival even further?\u201d<\/p>\n

While Rasonque offers a groundbreaking new therapy for pancreatic cancer, Ligresti said the medical community will be closely watching post-market data to understand its real-world durability. <\/p>\n

How Rasonque stands up against inevitable drug resistance, and how best to sequence or combine it with existing therapies, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also await the real-world economic impact of the new drug, which has been priced at nearly $500,000<\/a> for a full [year] of therapy,\u201d Ligresti said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Share on PinterestThe FDA approved Rasonque (daraxonrasib), a groundbreaking new drug to treat metastatic pancreatic cancer. Photo courtesy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[103,61,60,371],"class_list":["post-613666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}