Molecule to Medicine: How Daraxonrasib is Rewriting Pancreatic Cancer Drug Development
Monash University's Andrew R. Snyder, PhD. joins the show to discuss Daraxonrasib, a novel RAS(ON) inhibitor, doubled median overall survival (~13.2 vs ~6.6–6.7 months) versus chemotherapy in a 500‑patient phase 3 trial for previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer (RASolute 302; NEJM, May 31, 2026). Developed from an academic spinout and advanced through acquisition and optimization, the drug uses a partner‑protein strategy to target previously "undruggable" RAS. Results show strong efficacy, high rates of adverse events but fewer discontinuations than chemo, and potential expansion into other RAS‑driven cancers - a possible inflection point for oncology drug development.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Joining me now is Dr. Andrew Snyder. He's with Monash University.
And for full disclosure, he also doubles as my brother. Andy, great to see you. Thanks for joining us on the program this morning.
Andrew R. Snyder, PhD., Monash University
Yeah, you know, that's my day job, Jeff, is your brother. So here I am talking to you. Exciting times in the drug discovery space.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Absolutely, and my younger and smarter brother. So I'll give you that. Multiple degrees, we can go into that detail later.
Mom and dad are very proud. All right, Andy, when I saw the news about a new pancreatic cancer drug, I was, you know, this is a big concern that I think a lot of people have. Once you get, traditionally, once you get pancreatic cancer, it's moved along to a very final stage.
It's really hard to treat. This drug development, though, is revolutionary. What say you?
Andrew R. Snyder, PhD., Monash University
Jeff, revolutionary medicines is looking like they're succeeding in part where others have failed. And the change in life expectancy, the doubling of the survival statistics in this dreaded disease is quite noteworthy. The target that they are drugging here has long been associated with cancer and cancer biology for years and years and years.
And through some innovative approaches, they are tackling this cancer and attacking this target in a very precise way.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So what makes this, we've talked with you over the last few months about the drug development process. It takes years, years and years of trial and error. Then you have to go to clinical trials.
What makes the development of this particular drug treating pancreatic cancer so revolutionary, so different than the traditional method?
Andrew R. Snyder, PhD., Monash University
So this story starts at a company right in our backyard here in Cambridge, Mass called Warp Drive Bio. And this was spun out of Greg Verdine's group where he was a chemist at Harvard and is a serial entrepreneur in the biotech space. And he had a novel approach to finding chemical matter for difficult to drug targets.
And this was a twist and a turn where the company was sold and if I can remember 2018 to another company where this molecule was further developed and ultimately leads us to the phase three readout that came out in the New England Journal of Medicine a week or two ago. This twist and turn of the biology and the financing and ultimately gets to the point with conviction both from the investigator point of view and the investor point of view where we can realize these gains in the clinic.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So it seems like the investor goals, I don't put words in your mouth, but from the outside looking in the investor goals and the medical goals are kind of symbiotic, they're together, they're aligned. It's a lot quicker. Let's talk about clinical trials though.
How does this get to become mainstream? So someone, if I, God forbid, you, God forbid, someone that we know, God forbid, has pancreatic cancer, how does this get from where it is today into final approval and distribution to the people that need it most?
Andrew R. Snyder, PhD., Monash University
Well, yeah, there's a lot there, Jeff. So let's just talk about the trial itself. So the trial that was published was a multicenter international trial of heavily pretreated pancreatic cancer patients.
There were 500 patients. Many of those patients had dysregulation in the RAS oncogene, which is a main driver in this cancer and was previously deemed to be undruggable. And so the way this trial was conducted is that roughly half of the people were put in this chemotherapy alone and the other half are in chemotherapy plus this new medicine.
And they follow those people and ultimately they have a substantially different readout 12 months into the study where they can clearly see the benefit of the drug. Now, as far as approval, I believe this will be the study that gets them to the finish line, the so-called registration trials. But also there's now this therapeutic, excuse me, this compassionate use case and all kinds of different cases where people can use this in its existing form, I believe.
This is just a single cancer that was studied in this trial. The company Revolution Medicine has additional clinical trials in other cancers where this RAS oncogene is deemed to be a driver as well. And so every time they do a trial in a specific patient population, they'll be able to understand whether this drug can affect the unmet need.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Right, and so there may be other cancers that it can treat. Or I would imagine Andy that, or Dr. Snyder, that this approach can be mirrored by other drug developers in order to find other solutions to treating other chronic diseases.
Andrew R. Snyder, PhD., Monash University
Right, and so there's obviously learnings for the entire field. A lot of these findings will be protected by intellectual property, but that doesn't mean you can't use the information to uncover your own drug discovery and therapeutic hypothesis for different targets. This is obviously a critical finding and advances the field quite rapidly.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So you talk to a lot of your peers in the industry. You go to conferences. That's part of your job function is to interact with your peers.
This has really created quite a bit of a stir. This is not like just a regular drug treatment or a clinical trial, right? This has created quite a bit of a buzz.
Andrew R. Snyder, PhD., Monash University
Yeah, you know, this has been in the New York Times. There's obviously a former United States Senator that suffers greatly with this disease. And he has benefited from this drug.
Look, again, as I said at the outset, revolutionary medicines has succeeded where others have failed. They took a novel approach here. People have tried to drug RAS unsuccessfully because they've tried a more traditional approach.
This is a unique approach, using a partner protein to drug RAS. And it seems to be working. Now, look, we'd love the overall survival to top out past 13.6 months, of course. But again, this doubling of the overall survival is substantial for the field. Yeah, and, oh, go ahead. I'm sorry, finish your thought.
No, I was like, you know, and it's noteworthy there are obviously side effects with this drug. And so perhaps next generation medicines would mitigate that somewhat. But, you know, it's important to note that, but it's also important to note the high unmet need here.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So does the success of this, to use your words, novel approach, does this mean that, let's talk about the money aspect of this for a couple of minutes. The venture capital that goes behind the drug development or the M&A activity, do you think that something like this with the intellectual property, the development, the research could actually speed up the flow of VC money towards drug remedies like we're discussing this morning?
Andrew R. Snyder, PhD., Monash University
Well, yeah. I mean, look, I believe Revolution Medicines is a publicly traded company currently. So I don't know if VCs hold any of that stock or not, but I can tell you anytime there are success stories, it's good for the industry.
We're in the business of taking novel approaches, turning them into companies and ultimately turning them into approved medicines that have therapeutic benefit in diseases with high unmet need. That is what we're doing when we see the results of that. When they work, that can only be good for our industry.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
I wanna ask you about the technology. We've often, you and I have talked about artificial intelligence. Did it play a role here, maybe sifting through all the data sets?
I would imagine that when you strip the DNA down or whatever, forgive me, I'm a lay person, but when you strip the data down, there's a lot of it. Does technology play an important role in addition to just a traditional clinical trials that people go through?
Andrew R. Snyder, PhD., Monash University
You know, Jeff, that's a little bit of a, that's a difficult question to answer. I don't have a real big purview of the ins and outs of this program or this trial per se. I will say as a rule, people are using artificial intelligence to understand the entire clinical landscape here.
How can we run trials faster? Just getting the documentation done faster. How can we identify subpopulations of people that might be responders?
There is an entire network of companies and individuals and consultants that are trying to apply AI to the clinical landscape as well in order to do things faster and get the answers more quickly for investors and for patients.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So it sounds like it's a little bit more than the Petri dish that we had in Mr. Wright's class back in 10th grade at Friends.
Andrew R. Snyder, PhD., Monash University
Yeah, you know, we still use the Petri dish, but we have a lot more than the Petri dish these days.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And of course the fetal pig. Dr. Snyder, Andy, always great to see you. Thanks for some of the breaking news, help break it down.
And look, we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon.
Andrew R. Snyder, PhD., Monash University
All right, thanks Jeff.
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This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 7:30 AM.