For decades, pancreatic cancer patients have faced some of the bleakest odds in medicine. Treatments barely moved the needle. Survival rates remained devastatingly low. Families were often left with little hope beyond chemotherapy and time.

Now, a new experimental drug is changing that conversation in a way oncologists say they have not seen in years.

A pancreatic cancer treatment called daraxonrasib is showing results so dramatic that doctors are calling it a potential turning point for one of the deadliest cancers in the world. Early data suggests the drug can double survival time in patients with advanced disease, while also slowing tumor growth for months longer than current standard treatments.

“This really feels like a watershed moment,” said Dr. Brian Wolpin, who led the new research on daraxonrasib and directs the Hale Family Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “It’s going to shift how we think about treatment for pancreatic cancer overall.”

The momentum behind the drug is building fast.

The Food and Drug Administration has already fast-tracked daraxonrasib for approval. Last week, the agency took another major step, allowing drugmaker Revolution Medicines to provide the treatment to patients outside clinical trials through an expanded access program.

That move came just weeks after Revolution Medicines released early Phase 3 trial findings showing patients who received daraxonrasib alongside chemotherapy survived twice as long as those who received chemotherapy alone.

On Wednesday, researchers published additional findings in the New England Journal of Medicine from an earlier phase of the trial. The results stunned many cancer specialists.

Among patients whose pancreatic cancer had already spread throughout the body, daraxonrasib kept tumors from worsening for more than eight months and extended survival to nearly a year and a half.

For a disease where many patients do not survive beyond one year after diagnosis, the numbers are being viewed as extraordinary.

A Cancer Long Considered Nearly Untreatable

Pancreatic cancer remains one of the deadliest forms of cancer in the United States.

More than 67,000 Americans are expected to be diagnosed this year, according to the American Cancer Society. More than 52,000 people are projected to die from the disease.

The danger is compounded by how quietly pancreatic cancer spreads. There is no routine screening test, and early symptoms are often so vague that about 80% of patients are diagnosed only after the disease has already advanced.

Once pancreatic cancer becomes metastatic, meaning it has spread to organs like the liver or lungs, survival rates collapse. The American Cancer Society says only 3% of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer are alive five years after diagnosis.

“We have been desperately working very hard trying to find other ways to treat the cancer,” Wolpin said.

How Daraxonrasib Works

The drug targets a protein known as RAS, which controls how cells grow.

More than 90% of pancreatic cancers carry mutations in the RAS gene. Those mutations effectively jam the protein into a permanent “on” position, triggering uncontrolled cancer growth.

For years, scientists labeled RAS “undruggable” after repeated failures to block it successfully.

Daraxonrasib appears to have solved that problem.

The treatment works by pairing with another protein inside cells called cyclophilin A. Together, the two act like what Wolpin described as a “molecular glue,” allowing the drug to latch onto RAS and stop it from fueling further cancer spread.

The newly published Phase 1/2 study involved 168 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer that had spread to other parts of the body. Every participant had already undergone standard chemotherapy.

Patients receiving the highest dose saw progression-free survival of about 8.1 months. Overall survival reached approximately 15.6 months.

Those numbers represent a major leap in a cancer where treatment gains have historically been measured in weeks, not months.

The Side Effects Patients Are Enduring

The drug’s promise comes with serious side effects.

Patients reported blistering rashes resembling severe sunburns, painful sores in the mouth and throat, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Former Sen. Ben Sasse, who entered a clinical trial after being diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer last year, described the rash as “nuclear” during a New York Times podcast appearance last month.

Sasse also said his tumors have shrunk significantly since starting the treatment.

Wolpin acknowledged some patients had to temporarily stop taking the drug “to let the rash calm down.”

Still, many patients appear willing to tolerate the side effects because of the potential survival benefit.

Overall, Wolpin said the treatment is “much more tolerable than chemo. Most patients greatly prefer the ability to take a pill every day rather than do all of those infusions.”

Doctors treated most side effects with antibiotics, topical creams, and anti-diarrheal medications. Severe reactions occurred in roughly 30% of patients, while eight participants left the trial because of complications.

Doctors Say the Results Are Different From the Usual Hype

Cancer specialists are often cautious when breakthrough claims dominate headlines. Pancreatic cancer has seen promising studies before, only for treatments to disappoint later.

This time, many experts believe the excitement is justified.

“Those of us who take care of this disease are, frankly, a little cynical about new data that comes out, especially data that gets a lot of press in the general media, because most of the time it is overhyped,” said Dr. Reza Nazemzadeh, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist at Atrium Health Levine Cancer in Charlotte, North Carolina. “But this is a big deal. This drug is the most exciting thing in pancreas cancer in over a decade.”

Nazemzadeh was not involved in the clinical trials but said several of his patients participated and experienced meaningful benefits.

Anecdotally, he said, the treatment appeared to give patients more time with loved ones than existing therapies.

“I don’t use the word ‘groundbreaking’ lightly,” said Dr. Sekhar Padmanabhan, a surgical oncologist and director of robotic liver, pancreas and bile duct surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “This is going to have a significant impact on how we take care of our patients.”

A Major Shift in Cancer Treatment May Be Coming

Researchers believe daraxonrasib could dramatically reshape how pancreatic cancer is treated in the future.

In the Phase 3 trial, researchers found patients receiving only chemotherapy survived about 6.7 months. Those receiving the combination of chemotherapy and daraxonrasib survived 13.2 months.

The findings may be even more important because the trial included patients without the KRAS mutation, potentially suggesting broader benefits for pancreatic cancer patients overall.

“I think we’re going to stop thinking of chemotherapy as something that you have to give to everyone,” Wolpin said.

Researchers are now exploring whether daraxonrasib could work even better when given earlier in treatment, either before chemotherapy or at the same time from the start.

Two smaller studies presented at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in April already showed survival benefits when daraxonrasib was used as part of first-line therapy.

Scientists are also investigating whether the drug could help patients battling other aggressive cancers tied to RAS mutations, including colorectal and lung cancer.

Dr. Dae Won Kim, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, said he expects the FDA to move quickly toward approval.

For patients and families who have spent years hearing grim statistics and limited options, the shift is already being felt.

“That’s the direction that the field is going,” Padmanabhan said. “It brings hope to a disease that for decades we didn’t really have much to offer beyond first-line therapies that haven’t prolonged life very much. This has the capacity to do that.”