A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Government regulators are giving fresh hope to people with advanced pancreatic cancer. The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new drug called daraxonrasib. And in clinical trials, people who took it survived nearly twice as long as those with traditional chemotherapy. Joining us now to talk about this is Adam Feuerstein. He's a senior biotech writer for the science and health website STAT. Adam, when I hear someone is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I can't help but wince because of how fast it moves. I mean, how hard is it to treat?
ADAM FEUERSTEIN: It is. It's one of the most aggressive and lethal cancers out there, and mostly because it's so difficult to diagnose. And by the time patients are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, it has grown. It's advanced. And so for that reason, you know, the five-year survival rate of pancreatic cancer is very low. And on top of that, it's just a very difficult type of cancer to treat. A lot of the advances in cancer over the last decade or so, let's say, have not really helped patients with pancreatic cancer.
MARTÍNEZ: So it's fair to call this drug a major breakthrough, especially one that gives people twice as long as other kinds of traditional kind of therapy.
FEUERSTEIN: Yeah. Breakthrough is probably a word you're hearing most often with describing this approval and this - like you said, this drug called daraxonrasib. It's made by a biotech company called Revolution Medicines. And like you alluded to, a near-doubling of survival for patients in the clinical trial that supported the approval.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So how long before people can get their hands on this drug?
FEUERSTEIN: So the drug is now - it was approved yesterday, on Wednesday. It's now - the company had a call yesterday. It's now commercially available, so the drug is - like, it's been launched almost immediately.
MARTÍNEZ: Oh. So how did this place - this Revolution Medicines get this drug to market so soon?
FEUERSTEIN: Well, you know, it's really been decades in the making. You know, scientists for decades have known that this family of proteins called RAS - R-A-S - and particularly a protein called KRAS were implicated and fueled about 90% of pancreatic cancer cases. The problem was - is that this protein and the mutations in this protein were kind of likened to sort of a greasy ball. And so it's been exceedingly difficult for drugmakers' scientists to create a drug that was able to sort of lock into this mutation. So it's taken years and years and efforts. And it's kind of built over time to where they've been able to develop this drug, daraxonrasib, which is actually able to kind of grab ahold of this greasy-ball mutation and impact it. And that's kind of where we are today.
MARTÍNEZ: So it sounds like they were pretty confident that they would get FDA approval.
FEUERSTEIN: The results from the study came out this spring, and they were so overwhelmingly positive. You know, so the fact that - the drug was always going to get approved. I think it was really a matter...
MARTÍNEZ: OK.
FEUERSTEIN: ...Of time, of just, like, the company submitting the application and getting the review process completed.
MARTÍNEZ: How much is it going to cost?
FEUERSTEIN: This drug costs $39,800 per month, so that works out to about $478,000 per year. Now, that is without the typical sort of insured discounts and rebates. That is not an out-of-pocket cost for patients, so that's not a - the price that patients will pay. Obviously, if they have insurance, their insurance companies will pick up a large part of the tab. But if your follow-up question is, is it an expensive drug? Yes, it is.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, how about this, then - are there options for people without insurance?
FEUERSTEIN: I think that there are. Most drug companies today have sort of patient-assistant programs that will help people pay for medicines if they can't afford them.
MARTÍNEZ: Adam Feuerstein is a senior biotech writer for the science and health website STAT. Adam, thank you very much.
FEUERSTEIN: Thank you.
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