Canadian pancreatic cancer specialist expects to open clinical trials on pill that doubled survival time

The University of California’s Dr. Zev Wainberg breaks down the work his team has been doing to lengthen the life of patients with pancreatic cancer.

TORONTO — Oncologists say they’re working to quickly get Canadian patients with pancreatic cancer into clinical trials for a new pill that could double their survival time.

Dr. Jennifer Knox, medical director of the pancreatic cancer clinic at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, said she hopes to start a clinical trial of the experimental medication daraxonrasib and other related drugs at her centre in the coming months.

Knox independently reviewed a U.S.-led study of daraxonrasib and presented her assessment at at a meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology in Chicago on Sunday.

In an interview on Tuesday, she called the study results “amazing.”

The randomized Phase 3 clinical trial of 500 pancreatic cancer patients, which was also published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), found those who took the daily pill survived for more than a year compared to just over six months for patients who had chemotherapy alone.

In an emailed response to The Canadian Press on Wednesday, manufacturer Revolution Medicines said it is first applying to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to license the drug and is “actively preparing regulatory submissions globally” but wouldn’t comment on specific countries.

Health Canada said in an email on Tuesday that it has not received an application to license daraxonrasib in Canada.

Knox said clinical trials in Canada will allow as many patients as possible with pancreatic cancer -- which has been one of the most difficult cancers to treat -- to get the experimental drug without waiting for it to be licensed.

“I think the world expected to see that this drug would improve survival for pancreas cancer and we wouldn’t say no to any help there because so many things just don’t work,” Knox said in an interview on Tuesday.

“But to see it double the survival, I mean, it’s never been seen in pancreas cancer before.”

Dr. Daniel Renouf, executive medical director for BC Cancer in Vancouver and a pancreatic cancer specialist, was also at the meeting in Chicago and said the survival data prompted a standing ovation.

“The entire crowd got up and it was a very moving moment,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.

“(You) really think of all the patients that you have both now and potentially in the future that are going to benefit from this type of approach to treating pancreatic cancers.”

Renouf said he expects clinical trials to open soon in Vancouver.

“This is something we want to be able to offer our patients as soon as possible,” he said.

Pancreatic cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer death in Canada, said Stuart Edmonds, vice-president of mission, research and advocacy at the Canadian Cancer Society.

“Survival rates are around 12 per cent. They were around five per cent in the early 90s. So we’ve seen a significant increase in survival, but survival is still very, very low,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.

Pancreatic cancer is aggressive. It’s also often not discovered until it has spread to other organs because it sometimes doesn’t cause any symptoms in its early stages. Some symptoms that may appear are non-specific, including indigestion, abdominal or back pain and weight loss, according to the cancer society.

Edmonds called daraxonrasib a “breakthrough drug” for pancreatic cancer.

“We’ll look to see how we can support Canadians getting access to this drug as fast as possible,” he said.

Daraxonrasib works by shutting down a protein called RAS. RAS mutations are found in more than 90 per cent of pancreas cancer cases.

“The mutation makes the RAS molecule spend all its time turned on, as opposed to cycling on, off, on, off,” Knox said.

“(Being) on all the time means it just drives everything in the cell to divide and spread and turn into the cancer.”

In addition to increasing survival, patients on daraxonrasib reported better quality of life and less pain, she said.

The most common side-effects in the study were rashes and a sore mouth.

Knox said for decades, RAS proteins causing pancreatic cancer were considered “undruggable” because there was no place for a drug molecule to attach.

Daraxonrasib works around that by attaching to cyclophilin A and the two work together to lock the RAS protein.

There are other RAS inhibitors besides daraxonrasib that show promise. Knox and Renouf hope to also offer those to patients through clinical trials.

All the patients in the New England Journal of Medicine study had already been treated with a round of chemotherapy.

Knox said the next step is to offer patients a RAS inhibitor drug at the beginning of their treatment cycle, with the hope that it will work even better at that early stage.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 3, 2026.

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

Nicole Ireland, The Canadian Press