Science|The Race to Develop More Medicines Like the New Pancreatic Cancer Drug

The Food and Drug Administration’s approval on Wednesday of a new drug for pancreatic cancer marked the end of a long quest to develop a medicine that can hit one of cancer’s most elusive targets.

Researchers hope the new drug is just the beginning, opening a new chapter in treatment for a range of cancer types.

At least 79 drugs that take a similar approach are being tested in 238 clinical trials worldwide, according to one tally by academic researchers.

Large drugmakers like Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Amgen and AstraZeneca are among the companies racing to develop their own medicines that work like the new drug, daraxonrasib, which is made by Revolution Medicines and will be sold as Rasonque.

The new drug, taken as two daily pills, attacks a mutated cellular protein called KRAS. It has long been an enticing target, because it fuels nearly all pancreatic cancers, as well as many lung and colon cancers and some other tumor types. But for years, the smooth-surfaced KRAS protein was considered impossible to attack, because it lacked an obvious toehold for a drug to exploit.

But a series of scientific advances gradually overturned that doctrine, showing that KRAS could be conquered. Starting around 2024, research activity in the field exploded.