April 13 (Reuters) – Revolution Medicines’ experimental oral drug helped patients with pancreatic cancer live longer and showed an improvement in survival without worsening of the disease in a keenly anticipated late-stage trial.
Shares of the company surged 40% to $134 in premarket trading.
Patients who received the once-daily pill, daraxonrasib, showed a median overall survival of 13.2 months compared with 6.7 months for those who were given intravenous cytotoxic chemotherapy, the standard of care, the company said on Monday.
These results underscore daraxonrasib’s potential to redefine the treatment landscape, CEO Mark Goldsmith said.
The pill targets RAS mutations, which drive tumor growth and are found in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases.
In a note last week, RBC Capital Markets analyst Leonid Timashev said investors have set a bar of 11-12 months for overall survival, which is the duration from disease diagnosis until death and considered a gold standard goal for cancer trials.
RBC analysts estimate a more than $10 billion opportunity for daraxonrasib.
The study enrolled previously treated patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who had tumors harboring a wide range of RAS variants, as well as those without an identified RAS mutation.
Pancreatic cancer is among the most deadly forms of cancer globally with one of the lowest five-year survival rates of any cancer, often cited around 13%.
“For patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer, new treatment options are urgently needed to increase survival time and improve quality of life,” said Brian Wolpin, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the principal investigator for the trial.
Revolution plans to submit these data to global regulatory authorities, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as part of a future marketing application under the priority voucher, which reduces the review time.
Separately, media reports have identified the company as a potential acquisition target nL6N3YQ06L, but no deal has materialized nL4N3Y81GA yet.
(Reporting by Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
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