Pancreatic cancer has been, for decades, one of the biggest challenges of modern oncology. Its diagnosis usually arrives late and therapeutic options in advanced stages have historically been limited, accompanying a mortality very high. But a new experimental drug has hit the table by promising to double survival in patients who have the most severe forms of the disease.
The protagonist of this revolution is called daraxonrasib and has come to light together with the data recently presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology congress that has shaken the medical community, confirming that we are facing a possible paradigm shift for a disease that had not received good news for too long.
More months. To understand the magnitude of the advance, you have to look at the results of the phase 3 trial, called RASolute 302. This study has focused on patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who had already received previous treatments without success.
Until now, the standard therapy, which is the well-known chemotherapy, in this second line of treatment offered a median overall survival of just 6.7 months. But it has been seen that, when administering daraxonrasibthe median overall survival shot up to 13.2 months. That is, practically double.
And there is more. The trial, considered the first large phase three study of a drug of this type in this context, not only demonstrated an improvement in lifespan, but also in disease progression-free survival and in the objective response rate of tumors.
The endorsement Although it may seem very promising and fanciful, we are seeing that this therapy is based on a scientific basis that had already been audited and published at the highest level. By this we refer to the published results of the previous phases of this trial that were public in The New England analyzing 168 previously treated patients, and a powerful antitumor activity was seen.
But it is not without problems, since the NEJM article detailed that about a third of patients experienced significant adverse effects. However, in the context of metastatic pancreatic cancer, the risk-benefit balance is considered extraordinarily promising.
An invincible enemy. The real technical triumph of daraxonrasib is its mechanism of action, since pancreatic cancer is known to be largely driven by mutations in the RAS gene family, and especially KRAS. And for more than 30 years, the scientific community considered that proteins mutated by KRAS were impossible to medicate.
But now daraxonrasib is a multi-RAS inhibitor that acts on the mutations of this very specific protein that were the gateway to pancreatic cancer. This makes it the first pancreatic targeted therapy capable of offering sustained responses over time.
The Spanish accent. The arrival at phase 3 does not mean that the research ends here, but rather that the scientific community is already looking for a way to enhance this drug with other drugs to prevent the tumor from ‘learning’ to endure it.
In this field of preclinical biology, the work of Spanish researchers stands out. The group of the prestigious scientist Mariano Barbacid has already documented work in animal models using a triple combination that includes daraxonrasib along with other drugs that have been on many people’s lips recently.
Images | MedinePlus CDC
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings