Health New drug shown to be highly effective against one of the deadliest forms of cancer By Adrian Villellas, Over the past decade, more cancers have become treatable with precision drugs – pills aimed at the exact genetic fault feeding a tumor. Pancreatic cancer kept getting left out, still leaning on chemotherapy when the disease spread. That gap is starting to close. A large international trial found that a single daily pill, one built to shut down the faulty growth signal behind most of these tumors, helped patients live measurably longer than chemotherapy did. A relentless disease Few cancers are as unforgiving. One analysis of long-term survival data found that, even with recent gains, the share of patients alive 5 years after diagnosis stayed painfully low, and the odds drop further once the cancer spreads. That grim math explains why recent trial results drew attention. Dr. Zev Wainberg, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), helped lead the work after years of watching the disease resist treatment. “For years we’ve made incremental gains in treating pancreatic cancer,” said Wainberg, describing a field used to small steps rather than large ones. His team’s progress had been slow and hard-won. The hardest target Much of the disease’s ferocity traces to one overactive gene. In more than 90% of pancreatic tumors, a gene called KRAS stays stuck in the on position, ordering cells to keep growing. Knowing the culprit did not mean anyone could stop it. For decades, scientists treated the protein as undruggable, its surface too smooth for standard drugs to grab onto, a frustration documented in one review of the field.