A new drug, recently approved by the American F.D.A., is being released for clinic use and is being touted as a game-changer in the world of pancreatic cancer treatment.The drug, called daraxonrasib but being marketed under the name Rasonque, is manufactured by American pharmaceutical company Revolution Medicines and has been proven to drastically increase the life expectancy of those suffering from pancreatic cancer.Those prescribed Rasonque will take a pill two times a day, and, although not a cure for the cancer, it is the first drug of its kind to actually help combat pancreatic cancer in such an effective way that the patient should see a significantly increased life span.It has been approved for those who have been diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer and have tried chemotherapy with little to no effect. According to the New York Times, in clinical trials, patients who took Rasonque lived almost twice as long as those who didn't. The average lifespan for someone taking the drug was 13 months compared to just seven for those who didn't..There were even some patients who lived for multiple years after taking the drug despite having severe pancreatic cancer.It was reported that when the clinical data from the trials was presented at a meeting of oncologists in May, the doctors stood up and applauded, with some even reported to have wept when the data showed the drug was able to double survival times.Most kinds of pancreatic, lung, and colon cancers require a mutated cellular protein called KRAS to be present to survive and spread, meaning that figuring out how to get rid of KRAS is the key to stopping the cancer.It was long believed that, due to the smooth surface of KRAS protein, there would never be any kind of drug that would be able to hold onto its surface and block it.But the clinical trials with Rasonque have shown that blocking this protein is possible, and it is expected that this will be the first in a new wave of breakthroughs in the fight against colon, lung, and pancreatic cancer.
