The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of an important new drug for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer represents not only a groundbreaking scientific and medical development but also a critical step forward in the Trump administration’s efforts to speed the development of innovative treatment options that can make a meaningful difference in the lives of patients and their families.
The development and approval of Rasonque (daraxonrasib), which targets the protein that is a key source of tumor growth in the vast majority of patients who have one of the most lethal and aggressive forms of cancer — pancreatic adenocarcinoma — is a sweeping advance for a disease that has few treatment options and a five-year survival rate of just 13%. Building on research conducted over decades, the new drug is the result of a series of recent breakthrough scientific advances and provides an answer to a puzzle that has challenged and frustrated scientists for years: how to attack and block the protein causing the tumor growth.
