A New Weapon Against Pancreatic Cancer
A new daily pill has doubled the survival time of patients with pancreatic cancer, in what researchers are calling a potential game-changer for one of the most lethal forms of the disease. The drug, daraxonrasib, nearly doubled overall survival compared with standard chemotherapy in a 500-patient Phase 3 trial presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago. Median survival rose to 13.2 months from 6.7 months, and progression-free survival also doubled.
Daraxonrasib works by shutting down the Kras protein, which drives the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells. The trial, known as RASolute 302, showed the benefit held regardless of the patient’s RAS mutation status. Crucially, the drug caused fewer serious side effects than chemotherapy. One veteran cancer researcher told the meeting she cried when she saw the results. The data were published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine and will now be submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval. In the UK, only about one in 20 people with pancreatic cancer survive five years after diagnosis.
Broader Advances in Cancer Care
Alongside the pancreatic breakthrough, ASCO heard encouraging results for head and neck cancer. A subcutaneous form of amivantamab, a bispecific antibody that activates the immune system and blocks two tumour-promoting proteins, shrank tumours in 42 per cent of patients with advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma – the sixth most common cancer worldwide. More than a third of those who responded achieved complete remission, and responses proved durable. Amivantamab is already approved for some lung cancers, and both daraxonrasib and amivantamab are now being trialled against other tumour types.
Progress is also visible in the field of precision medicine. An international study presented at the meeting found that a simple DNA test can identify which breast cancer patients are likely to benefit from certain chemotherapy drugs – and, just as importantly, which are not. This spares the latter group the side effects and stress of an ineffective treatment. The shift from broad-spectrum chemotherapy to targeted immunotherapy and molecularly tailored drugs has already transformed outcomes for blood cancers such as leukaemia and lymphoma. Between 1975 and 2021, the five-year relative survival rate for leukaemia doubled from 34 per cent to 68 per cent, driven by drugs such as BTK inhibitors and CAR T-cell therapy.
A Rising Challenge: Cancer in Younger People
Despite these advances, the global cancer picture is far from uniformly encouraging. Cancer causes nearly one in six deaths worldwide each year – around 10 million in total. And while survival for melanoma and prostate cancer now exceeds 90 per cent in most wealthy nations, the disease is becoming more common among younger adults. In England, cancer rates in the 25–49 age group rose by 24 per cent between 1995 and 2019. Between 2017 and 2019, around 100 younger adults in the UK were diagnosed with cancer every day. Researchers at Harvard University have found that each successive generation carries a higher risk of developing cancer later in life, meaning people are now more likely to be diagnosed at a younger age than their parents or grandparents.
Eleven cancers are becoming more frequent among young people in England, including bowel, pancreatic, endometrial, breast, ovarian and liver cancers. No single cause explains the trend, but evidence increasingly points to a combination of environmental and lifestyle changes. Rising obesity – linked to ten of the eleven rising cancers – is considered a primary driver, outweighing factors such as smoking and alcohol. The consumption of ultra-processed foods, high sugar intake and a sedentary Western diet are all implicated. Increased alcohol consumption among young adults, higher levels of air pollution and exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals may also play a role. Sleep deprivation, stress, delayed childbearing and changes in the gut microbiome are under investigation.
However, researchers caution that the observed rise cannot be fully explained by rising body mass index alone. “Additional, suspected, or currently unknown causes” are likely at work, they note. Genetics do not appear to account for the trend, though inherited mutations can increase individual risk.
Meanwhile, the global healthcare system is struggling to keep pace. Around 100,000 people are diagnosed with cancer every day, and a report presented at ASCO projects a shortfall of 100 million cancer care workers by 2050 – including 65 million nurses and 16 million diagnostic staff. This workforce crisis threatens to overwhelm health systems even as cancer incidence is predicted to rise by 21 per cent, reaching 35.3 million new cases annually by 2050. Already, one in three cancers worldwide goes undiagnosed. In the UK, about half of cancers are detected at a late stage, and almost every hospital trust in England failed to meet the key NHS target of starting treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral. In March 2026, just 72.8 per cent of patients began treatment within that window, against an 85 per cent target. Comparable figures were 71 per cent in Scotland, 61 per cent in Wales and 33 per cent in Northern Ireland. Every four-week delay reduces patient survival by roughly 10 per cent, depending on the cancer type.
Prof Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, noted that in the 25 years since her father – an oncologist – died of leukaemia and lymphoma at age 49, survival rates have improved dramatically, driven by a shift from broad-spectrum chemotherapy to precise immunotherapy and targeted medications. “If he were diagnosed in 2026, his chances would be much higher,” she said, reflecting a trend that continued investment could sustain.