Pancreatic Cancer Drug Daraxonrasib Nearly Doubles Survival in Major Trial, Drawing Standing Ovation at ASCO

On May 31, 2026, Dr. Brian Wolpin of Harvard's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute presented data at ASCO's annual meeting showing that daraxonrasib nearly doubled median overall survival in a 500-patient trial of previously treated advanced pancreatic cancer, prompting a rare standing ovation from the assembled oncologists. Veteran biotech journalist Adam Feuerstein, who has covered cancer conferences for two decades, said he had never witnessed a comparable reaction. ASCO's chief medical officer Julie Gralow called the result a 'grand slam,' while Toronto oncologist Jennifer Knox described it as a 'game changer.' The announcement came amid a broader wave of cancer treatment progress, including advances in immunotherapy, personalized mRNA cancer vaccines developed by Moderna and Merck, and CAR T-cell therapy for blood cancers. The US cancer death rate has fallen 34 percent from its 1991 peak through 2023, and the five-year relative survival rate for all cancers combined has risen from 50 percent in the 1970s to 70 percent for patients diagnosed between 2015 and 2021. Pancreatic cancer has historically been among the hardest to treat, with most patients dying within months of diagnosis, making the daraxonrasib results particularly significant to the oncology community.