PHOENIX, Ariz. — April 30, 2025 — HonorHealth Research Institute's new downtown Phoenix laboratory has produced its first study, centered on a promising new treatment for pancreatic cancer, one of the most aggressive and difficult to treat of all malignancies.
Study results were presented April 29 in Chicago at the annual meeting of the 58,000-member American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the world's largest professional organization of cancer investigators, caregivers and patient advocates.
Study findings indicate that a newly discovered drug, RMC-6236, also known as Daraxonrasib, is a powerful inhibitor of RAS (including KRAS, NRAS and HRAS). These are commonly mutated cancer-causing genes that drive the formation of many types of tumors, including pancreatic cancer. This study evaluated the effectiveness of RMC-6236 in patient-derived pancreatic tumors harboring KRAS mutations.
New: Center for Translational Science
According to this initial study to emerge from the Research Institute's new Center for Translational Science laboratory, RMC-6236, when combined with other proven pancreatic cancer drugs, is a promising new agent against RAS, particularly KRASG12X. Existing KRASG12C inhibitors are unable to target other mutations and often have the unintended result of making patient tumors drug resistant.
"The fibrotic tumor microenvironment in pancreatic cancer exacerbates therapy resistance, and combining RMC-6236 with other therapies could overcome both intrinsic and acquired resistances," according to Taylor Bargenquast, a clinical research technician and lead author of the study abstract, which she presented at AACR.
"These results demonstrate the efficacy of RMC-6236 when combined with other therapeutic agents in a pancreatic cancer model — a three dimensional model of pancreatic cancer cells derived from patient biopsies," said Sunil Sharma, M.D., director of the Center for Translational Science and the senior author of the study abstract.
"The combination of RMC-6236 with standard chemotherapy and targeted therapies enhances its antitumor activity, suggesting a promising strategy for improving therapeutic outcomes in pancreatic cancer," said Erkut Borazanci, M.D., another of the study's authors, and medical director of the Institute's Oncology Research Division.
52,000 Americans expected to die
Pancreatic cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S., after lung and colorectal cancers, and is expected to contribute this year to the deaths of nearly 52,000 Americans.
Contributing to this study — Evaluating the efficacy of RAS(ON) inhibitor RMC-6236 combined with chemotherapy and other targeted therapies in 3D models involving patients with KRAS-mutated pancreatic cancer — was the Phoenix-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), part of City of Hope.
The study suggests that human clinical trials are warranted to further evaluate the safety and effectiveness of RMC-6236.
