University of Iowa Health Care and Mission Cancer + Blood were both recently approved to administer a promising new drug, called daraxonrasib, to patients undergoing treatment for metastatic pancreatic cancer.
In April, drugmaker Revolution Medicines released early findings from its Phase 3 clinical trial, which demonstrated that patients whose pancreatic cancer continued to progress on first line chemotherapy given through the vein derived benefit from receiving daraxonrasib pills alone once daily by mouth as a second line treatment, compared to patients who only received second line chemotherapy, also through the vein. In the second line setting, daraxonrasib doubled the time patients were alive when compared to chemotherapy. This treatment is being hailed as a groundbreaking advance that could change the outlook for pancreatic cancer patients dramatically.
"We are thrilled to be able to offer this cutting-edge drug for our pancreatic cancer patients who haven’t had success with standard treatment options. The early results are offering a real sense of hope for patients facing a cancer that is often hard to catch early and has lower survival rates than many of the cancers we treat."
Emily Brugioni, DO
8.4%
of cancer deaths
Third
leading cause of cancer death
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has fast-tracked daraxonrasib for approval. Currently the drug is only available under an expanded access treatment protocol which allows patients access to this potentially life-saving new drug before approval. The FDA expanded access process allows individual patient use of unapproved drugs with the manufacturer’s authorization and ethics approval from the overseeing Institutional Review Board.
Emily Brugioni, DO, oncologist at Mission Cancer + Blood used this process to treat the first patient in Central Iowa with daraxonrasib.
“We are thrilled to be able to offer this cutting-edge drug for our pancreatic cancer patients who haven’t had success with standard treatment options,” says Brugioni. “The early results are offering a real sense of hope for patients facing a cancer that is often hard to catch early and has lower survival rates than many of the cancers we treat.”
The treatment garnered widespread attention in April when former Senator Ben Sasse appeared on 60 Minutes and discussed his experience with daraxonrasib.
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