Thursday, August 27, 2026

FDA Approves Rasonque, New Targeted Drug That Nearly Doubled Survival In Pancreatic Cancer Trial

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new targeted treatment for adults with metastatic pancreatic cancer, giving patients with one of the most difficult-to-treat forms of the disease another treatment option.

The drug, daraxonrasib, will be marketed in the US under the brand name Rasonque and was developed by Revolution Medicines. The FDA approved the once-daily oral medicine on August 26 for adults with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma who have received at least one prior systemic therapy or who are not candidates for multiagent systemic therapy.

The approval is based on results from RASolute 302, a global Phase 3 clinical trial involving 500 patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma whose disease had progressed after one previous line of systemic treatment. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either daraxonrasib or physician’s choice of standard chemotherapy.

What did the trial find?

The results showed a significant survival benefit for patients receiving daraxonrasib. In the overall trial population, the median overall survival was 13.2 months with daraxonrasib, compared with 6.7 months with standard chemotherapy. The hazard ratio for death was 0.40, meaning the relative risk of death was 60% lower in the daraxonrasib group during the study period.

The drug also improved progression-free survival. Patients receiving daraxonrasib had a median progression-free survival of 7.2 months, compared with 3.6 months among those receiving chemotherapy. The objective response rate was 30% with daraxonrasib versus 11% with chemotherapy.

The findings were published in The New England Journal of Medicine in May and later appeared in the journal’s July 2026 issue.

How does Rasonque work?

Daraxonrasib belongs to a new class of medicines designed to inhibit the RAS GTPase family, a group of proteins involved in signalling that can drive cancer-cell growth.

RAS signalling is particularly important in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. According to the FDA, Rasonque targets multiple forms of RAS, a key driver of tumour growth in most pancreatic adenocarcinomas.

This makes the approval significant because it introduces a targeted treatment approach for metastatic pancreatic cancer rather than relying solely on conventional chemotherapy.

However, the drug does not cure pancreatic cancer. The FDA approval is specifically for metastatic disease in adults who meet the stated treatment criteria, and the survival figures from the trial represent median outcomes across the study population, they do not predict how long an individual patient will live.

What are the side effects?

The FDA lists several common adverse reactions associated with Rasonque, including rash, diarrhoea, stomatitis, nausea, fatigue, vomiting, abdominal pain, swelling or oedema, decreased appetite and haemorrhage. The prescribing information also includes warnings and precautions concerning dermatologic and soft-tissue toxicity, oral disorders, gastrointestinal complications, interstitial lung disease/pneumonitis and embryo-fetal toxicity.

In the RASolute 302 trial, adverse events occurred in all patients receiving daraxonrasib and in 97.7% of those receiving chemotherapy. Grade 3 or higher adverse events occurred in 61.8% of the daraxonrasib group and 69.6% of the chemotherapy group.

What makes the approval significant?

Pancreatic cancer remains challenging to treat because it is frequently diagnosed after it has already spread. The new approval does not change that reality, but it does add a targeted medicine that demonstrated a meaningful survival advantage over standard chemotherapy in a Phase 3 trial.

The FDA described the approval as a new treatment option for patients facing an “extraordinarily difficult and historically hard-to-treat cancer." The agency also said the application was reviewed under its National Priority Voucher pilot programme and that approval came 6.5 months before the user-fee deadline.

Rasonque had also been made available to some patients through an expanded-access programme before full approval. In May, the FDA issued a “safe to proceed" letter allowing Revolution Medicines to initiate the programme for eligible patients with previously treated metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
 

The treatment is now available by prescription in the United States. Revolution Medicines reported a wholesale acquisition cost of $39,800 for a 30-day supply at the recommended dose.

For now, the significance of Rasonque is best understood not as a cure for pancreatic cancer, but as a new targeted treatment that substantially improved median survival compared with chemotherapy in a Phase 3 trial of previously treated metastatic disease. Further studies are also evaluating daraxonrasib in other treatment settings, including earlier lines of therapy.

 

 

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for food, medicines, exercises and so on.   


 

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posted by G S Iyer at 9:26 AM 0 comments

What happens to your body when you eat more pulses? Five effects you need to know

Lentils, beans and chickpeas have been feeding people for thousands of years. Lentils are among the world’s earliest cultivated crops, with archaeological evidence tracing them back to the beginnings of agriculture. Yet scientists are still learning what happens inside our bodies when we eat them.

A 2026 review of the research examined the evidence on pulses and their effects on the gut and metabolism. Pulses are the dried edible seeds of legume plants, including lentils, chickpeas, dried beans and dried peas. Legumes are the wider plant family and also include foods such as soya and fresh peas.

The researchers brought together evidence from human studies with laboratory and animal research. So what does the science suggest pulses actually do once we eat them?

1. They feed microbes in your gut

Pulses provide plant protein and fibre, along with carbohydrates that are not always completely broken down before they reach the large intestine.

There, gut microbes get involved. When some bacteria break down fibre and other carbohydrates, they produce substances called short-chain fatty acids. These help support the lining of the gut and are involved in how the immune system and metabolism work.

Because pulses provide some of the carbohydrates these microbes feed on, researchers are interested in whether regularly eating them changes which microbes thrive in the gut and what they produce.

The recent review found promising evidence that pulses can affect the gut microbiome, the community of microbes living in our digestive system. But much of this research still comes from laboratory and animal studies. Longer human trials are needed before we know how important these changes are for health.

2. They can change what happens to your blood sugar after a meal

Blood sugar normally rises after we eat carbohydrates. Pulses appear to reduce the size of that rise.

A review that combined the results of 65 clinical trials, involving 2,102 adults with and without type 2 diabetes, found that eating pulses reduced rises in blood sugar after meals.

One possible explanation lies in their structure. Pulses contain fibre and starch that can be digested relatively slowly, and intact cell walls can make some of the starch harder for digestive enzymes to reach.

The evidence for longer-term changes is less certain. The same review found some improvements in measures of blood-sugar control, particularly among people with type 2 diabetes, but researchers rated much of this evidence as low or very low certainty.

3. They may modestly lower cholesterol

There is also evidence from human trials that eating legumes can produce small improvements in cholesterol.

A 2024 review of 24 trials involving 1,938 people found modest reductions in both total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol.

LDL stands for low-density lipoprotein. These particles carry cholesterol through the blood, and extensive genetic and clinical evidence shows that higher exposure to LDL contributes to the build-up of fatty plaques in arteries, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The changes seen in the legume trials were relatively small, so eating beans or lentils should not be thought of as a treatment for high cholesterol. They can, however, form part of a diet that supports cardiovascular health.

4. They may help you feel fuller

Pulses may also affect how hungry you feel after eating.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of short-term feeding trials found that people reported feeling fuller after meals containing pulses than after comparison meals. However, this did not reliably translate into eating less at the next meal.

This means the evidence supports a short-term effect on feelings of fullness more clearly than it supports claims that pulses automatically reduce how much we eat.

5. How you prepare them can change what your body absorbs

Pulses contain minerals such as iron and zinc, but they also naturally contain phytate. Phytate can bind to minerals and make some of them less available for the body to absorb. broken link

Preparation can change this. Research has found that techniques including soaking and sprouting can reduce phytate and improve the availability of iron and zinc, although the effects vary between foods and preparation methods.

So the amount of a mineral present in a food tells only part of the nutritional story. How that food is prepared can influence how much becomes available for our bodies to use.

There is an environmental advantage too

Pulses also have an unusual ability before they ever reach our plates.

Legume plants form partnerships with bacteria around their roots that convert nitrogen from the atmosphere into forms plants can use. This relationship is one reason legumes are important in farming systems and can help reduce reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilisers.

So, should we eat more pulses? The evidence is strongest for some effects and still developing for others. Human trials suggest pulses can reduce blood-sugar rises after meals, modestly improve cholesterol and increase feelings of fullness. Research into their effects on our gut microbes is particularly interesting, but better long-term studies in people are still needed.

Fortunately, adding pulses to meals does not require much reinvention. Lentils can be added to soups, curries and salads. Chickpeas can become hummus or be roasted, while beans work in stews, wraps and pasta dishes.

After thousands of years on our plates, pulses are hardly a new discovery. What is changing is our ability to follow what happens after we eat them, from the bacteria in our gut to changes in our blood. And scientists are still filling in parts of that picture.

 

 

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for food, medicines, exercises and so on.   

posted by G S Iyer at 9:04 AM 0 comments