In the United States, Rasonque has been approved as the first drug of its kind for treating metastatic pancreatic cancer. In a clinical trial, patients on the new treatment regimen lived a median of 13.2 months, compared with 6.7 months on standard chemotherapy.
The drug is taken as one tablet a day. It blocks RAS proteins, which help cancer cells grow and divide. RAS mutations are found in most pancreatic tumors.
This is not a cure for cancer, but a nearly twofold increase in survival is a serious result for a disease that for a long time had extremely limited treatment options.
