New pancreatic cancer treatment hailed as breakthrough, but Canadians don’t have access to it. Here’s why.

Dr. Jennifer Knox of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre says the new drug is 'easily the biggest breakthrough ever' in pancreatic cancer treatment.

A medical oncologist says a new pill for pancreatic cancer is the “biggest breakthrough” in treating the disease, but there are reasons why it isn’t available yet in Canada.

A U.S.-led study published in May had found that the experimental medication daraxonrasib had doubled the survival time of patients in a clinical trial.

“This is the first drug in a whole class of drugs that are being developed now that target a mutation in pancreas cancer called RAS,” Dr. Jennifer Knox, medical director of the pancreatic cancer clinic at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, told CTV Your Morning on Monday.

“So, it is easily the biggest breakthrough ever in pancreas cancer,” she added.

Knox said regulatory bodies need to review the safety of the treatment first.

“It isn’t Health Canda saying ‘no,’ it’s Health Canada hasn’t been asked to look at it yet, which is unfortunately what happens in drug development,” she said.

Knox had told The Canadian Press in early June that she hopes to start a clinical trial of daraxonrasib and other related drugs at her centre.

U.S. reviewing new drug

Knox said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently reviewing daraxonrasib before the manufacturer can apply for approval in Canada.

“Especially if the drug is developed in the U.S. or you can imagine other countries as well, they’re going to prioritize their own country first,” Knox said, adding that this is typical with new discoveries.

Last month, the manufacturer Revolution Medicines told The Canadian Press that it is first applying to the FDA to license the drug and is “actively preparing regulatory submissions globally,” though it didn’t mention specific countries.

The U.S. study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that those who took the daily pill survived for more than a year compared to around six months for patients who had chemotherapy alone.

The study involved 500 patients who were previously treated for metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, the most common type of pancreatic cancer.

How many Canadians are affected?

Pancreatic cancer is not frequently diagnosed in Canada, but it’s expected to be the third-leading cause of cancer-related death in 2026, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.

The charity estimated that 7,500 people in the country will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year, and 6,500 will die from it.

Pancreatic cancer occurs when cells grow in the pancreas, an organ in the abdomen, then become a malignant tumour that spreads to other parts of the body, according to experts.

Symptoms often don’t show up for this type of cancer until the cancer has expanded, according to the Mayo Clinic website, so it is rarely found in the early stages. The Mayo Clinic said that current treatment includes surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy or a combination of these options.

With files from The Canadian Press