Pancreatic Cancer Pill Shows Promise Against Lung Cancer Too

The newly approved pancreatic cancer drug daraxonrasib shrank tumors in over 30% of lung cancer patients in an early trial, researchers report.

A drug approved just last week for advanced pancreatic cancer may also work against lung cancer, according to an early-phase clinical trial published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers gave 136 patients with non-small cell lung cancer daily doses of daraxonrasib, a pill, for three weeks at a time. All participants had already tried other therapies with little or no success and carried mutations in RAS proteins, which can drive tumor growth. ABC News reports the drug was found to be safe and to reduce tumor burden in more than 30% of patients. In the lower dose group, 31% of patients saw tumors reduced; the middle dose group saw 34%, and the highest dose group saw 37%.

The result is striking because RAS proteins were long considered nearly untouchable targets in cancer medicine. At a Georgetown University School of Medicine seminar, associate professor Benjamin Weinberg of the Lombardi Cancer Center said successfully intercepting RAS function has been a long-time goal: 'Finally, we've hit the target that we've been trying to hit for many, many years.' He argued the drug will 'transform the landscape of treatment' and that 'it's not just pancreas cancer, the next ones on deck are colorectal or lung cancer.' Weinberg also noted the FDA approved daraxonrasib on Aug. 26 as a first-of-its-kind drug that significantly reduced the risk of death in metastatic pancreatic cancer patients.

The pancreatic approval rested on a late-stage trial of 500 patients in which median overall survival nearly doubled to 13.2 months versus about 6.7 months for standard chemotherapy, a figure both sources report. Side effects, however, are substantial: ABC News reports almost all lung trial participants reported side effects, with severe side effects in 54%, most commonly rash, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, plus mucositis, stomatitis, pneumonia and low blood counts. The study was funded by Revolution Medicines, which will sell the drug as Rasonque. Georgetown professor Stephen Liu called it 'a landmark achievement in an area that has been really void of advances,' while cautioning that much work remains.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. and worldwide, with about 230,000 diagnoses and about 125,000 deaths expected this year, according to the American Cancer Society figures cited by ABC News, and a roughly 1 in 19 lifetime risk. More than three-quarters of lung cancers are non-small cell. The FDA will likely require further late-stage trials with more participants before evaluating daraxonrasib for lung cancer approval. Researchers are also addressing resistance and side effects: Liu said understanding how tumors evolve around the drug is key, and Georgetown's Jill Smith is developing a nanoparticle for more precise delivery, telling The Hoya that 'combination therapy is a must with pancreatic cancer.'