Research Spotlight: Highlights from the ASCO Annual Meeting and Beyond

Editor's note: The "Research Spotlight" series is written by Dr. Anna Berkenblit, PanCAN's Chief Scientific and Medical Officer. Each month, Dr. Berkenblit shares her insights into the latest news and research in pancreatic cancer. Follow Dr. Berkenblit on X and LinkedIn.

Highlights from the ASCO Annual Meeting and Beyond

I will always remember the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting as the moment the tide turned in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. I had the honor of attending this conference in late May through early June, and my PanCAN colleagues and I rose to our feet for a standing ovation alongside an estimated 18,000 oncology healthcare professionals, advocates and other attendees to applaud the stunning overall survival data from the RASolute-302 phase 3 clinical trial.

The RASolute-302 trial tested Revolution Medicines' daraxonrasib, a once-daily pill that blocks RAS, compared to standard intravenous chemotherapy in patients with previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer.

This was a pivotal moment not only for medicine - a doubling of overall survival and progression-free survival, along with a tripling of response rate and improved quality of life - but also for science. Since the 1980s, researchers have been aware that more than 90% of pancreatic tumors are driven by mutations in a gene called KRAS. Elegant studies have been done to understand the shape of the KRAS protein, how it changes when it's mutated, how it turns on and off and how it interacts with other proteins and drives cellular signaling. And yet, for decades, KRAS and the whole RAS family of proteins were deemed "undruggable."

Never backing down from a challenge, PanCAN and our generous donors have funded more than $17 million in research focused on KRAS since 2003. This funding has brought forth new knowledge about how mutant KRAS drives pancreatic cancer growth, metabolism (breakdown of nutrients for energy) and resistance to treatment. PanCAN also convened experts across academic and federal institutions as well as pharmaceutical companies to collaborate and accelerate progress. And we will continue to support efforts to identify new strategies to stop KRAS, to find other targets and to develop treatment options to help everybody affected by pancreatic cancer live longer and better lives.

An important topic discussed at the ASCO meeting was management of the side effects that result from daraxonrasib. Many people have seen media coverage of the facial rash experienced by former Senator Ben Sasse while receiving daraxonrasib in a clinical trial for pancreatic cancer. For most people, the rash with daraxonrasib is not severe, especially with proactive measures to prevent and manage the rash including sun protection, antibiotics and steroid creams. Similarly, there was discussion around stomatitis, or mouth sores, which was the second most common side effect experienced by patients treated with daraxonrasib. Oral hygiene, mouthwashes and dietary changes can be implemented to help mitigate this side effect.

While the results from the RASolute-302 clinical trial are unprecedented for the treatment of pancreatic cancer, we know that this is not enough. One potential strategy to improve the efficacy of targeting RAS and further extend patients' lives is to develop combination approaches. Just one week after the ASCO meeting, Tango Therapeutics released data from a phase 1/2 clinical trial testing their investigational drug vopimetostat in combination with daraxonrasib in patients with previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer. Vopimetostat blocks a protein called PRMT5 and is thought to be effective in patients whose tumors have deletion of a gene called MTAP. For this clinical trial, all patients' tumors needed to have an MTAP deletion and a RAS mutation.

In this initial look at the data, 11 of 12 patients with pancreatic cancer had an objective tumor response, meaning that their tumors shrank by at least 30%. More work and a larger randomized phase 3 clinical trial will be necessary before we can determine whether this combination would be beneficial to patients.

Other therapeutic targets with promising data at the ASCO annual meeting included a protein called Claudin18.2 and one called MEK. An oral presentation at the conference described a phase 1b/2 clinical trial testing a bispecific antibody QLS31905 targeting Claudin18.2 and CD3, in development by Qilu Pharmaceutical, in combination with chemotherapy in patients with untreated advanced pancreatic cancer. Another oral presentation in a similar population shared results from a phase 2a trial of chemotherapy with atebimetinib, a small molecule MEK inhibitor being developed by Immuneering. MEK is "downstream" of KRAS, which means its activity is typically reliant on KRAS activation.

All these promising advances in targeted therapies for patients with pancreatic cancer serve as a reminder of the importance of biomarker testing. Through biomarker testing, a small sample of the tumor tissue is evaluated for mutations, fusions or other alterations that may influence which treatment options, including clinical trials, may be beneficial for that patient.

In addition to novel treatment approaches shared at ASCO, there were also presentations related to early detection and even prevention. Highlights for me were discussions around the role weight loss and diabetes medications known as GLP-1 agonists may play in reducing cancer risk, based on retrospective observational studies, including a comparison of cancer risk in patients with diabetes who received a GLP-1 agonist compared to other treatments for diabetes. More data will be necessary to fully understand the relationship and potential benefit GLP-1 agonists may have on cancer in general, and specifically pancreatic cancer, incidence and progression. Finally, data were presented from the GRAIL Galleri multi-cancer early detection (MCED) test. The large-scale randomized trial testing Galleri did not meet its primary endpoint of reducing the number of late-stage cancers diagnosed. While the concept of blood-based early detection tests, whether MCED or pancreatic cancer-specific, is attractive, more research and fine-tuning will be necessary before these types of tests can be standardly used in the clinic.

We've entered a new era in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. We commend Revolution Medicines and the U.S. FDA for working together to make daraxonrasib available to patients today via an Expanded Access Program and hopefully more widely available in the near future through an anticipated full approval. This is just the beginning. And there is more momentum than ever in devising additional strategies to target RAS and other alterations in pancreatic tumors and find new ways to detect the disease in its early, more treatable stages.

Now that we've reached this turning point, I invite you to join us in continuing to push the needle toward better outcomes for everyone affected by pancreatic cancer. Donate today.