STAT+: FDA approves new pancreatic cancer drug expected to usher in new era of treatment

The FDA approved daraxonrasib (Rasonque), a first-in-class therapy from Revolution Medicines that attacks a genetic cause of the aggressive, highly lethal malignancy. It is the first pancreatic cancer treatment to target such a genetic driver.

The approval was supported by a practice-changing clinical trial in which patients with advanced pancreatic cancer receiving Rasonque as second-line treatment achieved a median overall survival of 13.2 months, compared to 6.7 months for patients offered standard chemotherapy.

Oncologists hailed the approval as transformative. Andrew Ko, a medical oncologist at the University of California, San Francisco, said, "It will be transformative in the way we treat pancreas cancer. It's the biggest development we've had in pancreas cancer in decades."