New drug nearly doubles survival rates in some pancreatic cancer patients, study says

HealthWatch New drug nearly doubles survival rates in some pancreatic cancer patients, study says .chip { background-image: url('/fly/bundles/cbsnewscore/images/chip-bgd/chip-bgd-healthwatch.jpg'); } May 31, 2026 / 11:08 AM EDT / CBS/AP Add CBS News on Google A new, experimental medication nearly doubled overall survival rates for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, according to the results of a study published Sunday. Researchers say the findings are a significant marker of progress toward treating a notoriously deadly type of cancer, for which there have historically been limited effective options for therapies.The drug is called daraxonrasib and it blocks a mutated protein that fuels tumor growth in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases — a target that had eluded treatment for decades."While not curing the cancer, it is a very large step forward," said Dr. Zev Wainberg, of the University of California, Los Angeles, who helped lead the study.The research team found that taking the medication, as a daily pill, reduced the risk of death by 60% for patients with metastatic, or spreading, pancreatic cancer who had previously received treatment. That was compared with survival rates of patients receiving standard chemotherapy, according to UCLA Health. It randomly assigned the experimental drug or more chemotherapy to 500 patients whose metastatic cancer had quit responding to prior treatment. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented Sunday at the American Society for Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago.Those taking daraxonrasib lived for a median of 13.2 months compared with 6.7 months for chemotherapy recipients. While that may seem like a small improvement, Wainberg said it marked the first drug to show a substantial advantage over chemotherapy. This undated microscope image from USC via the NIH shows pancreatic cancer cells, nuclei in blue, growing as a sphere encased in membranes, red.&nbs...