> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://heathercutler.ca/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # All the Advances in Pancreatic Cancer This April - URL: https://heathercutler.ca/all-the-advances-in-pancreatic-cancer-this-april/ - Published: 2026-05-05T05:18:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-25T05:52:46.000Z - Description: April brought major pancreatic cancer developments, including promising daraxonrasib results, AI-powered early detection, and new blood tests. We also look at Canada’s latest research, clinical-trial access, and pancreatic cancer advocacy efforts. - Author: Christopher Cutler - Tags: Heather's Hope, Craig's Cause April was a big month in pancreatic cancer. A targeted pill nearly doubled survival time in a major clinical trial. An AI tool spotted tumors years before doctors could see them. A new blood test hit 92% accuracy for early detection. And the Canadian government responded to our petition — the first federal petition in Canadian history focused on pancreatic cancer alone. We want to be upfront about how we cover these updates. If you’ve been in this world long enough — as a patient, a caregiver, or someone who lost a person they love — you know that not every headline labelled “breakthrough” makes it to the treatment room. Trials fail. Promising drugs get stuck. Access stays unequal. We share progress here, but we do it with our eyes open. That’s the only honest way to do this. **THE MONTH IN NUMBERS** - **13.2 months** — how long patients lived on daraxonrasib, compared to 6.7 months on standard treatment - **73%** — how often Mayo Clinic’s AI caught pancreatic cancer up to 3 years before doctors found it - **91.9%** — accuracy of a new blood test for pancreatic cancer - **$34 million** — federal funding for pancreatic cancer research over the past five years, confirmed in the government’s response to our petition - **15,000** — cancer genomes now mapped through Canada’s Marathon of Hope Network **Petition E-6492: The Government Responds** *MP Tom Osborne presents Petition e-6492 in the House of Commons, February 23, 2026\. Video: ParlVU / House of Commons of Canada.* This is the update we’ve been waiting for. The Government of Canada has given its official response to Petition e-6492 — the petition inspired by Heather Cutler and presented in the House of Commons by MP Thomas Osborne. The response came from the Minister of Health. Here’s what they said — and what we think it means. **On getting patients into clinical trials:** The government pointed to Health Canada’s Clinical Trials Modernization Initiative. The goal is a more flexible system that’s easier for patients to access — including people in rural and remote areas. They talked about decentralized trials, which means parts of a trial happening closer to where patients live rather than only at big-city hospitals. A public consultation on the proposed rules launched in December 2025\. This is real progress on paper. We’ll be watching to see if the final rules match the promises. **On drug approvals:** The pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA) — the group that negotiates drug prices for public coverage — said they’ve cut their negotiation times by 41% since 2020\. That’s down from 11 months to about 6.5 months. They’ve also created two faster pathways: one for certain cancer drugs and one for simpler cases. These are real changes. Whether they’re fast enough for patients who don’t have months to wait is another question — and one we’ll keep pushing on. **On research funding:** The government said that the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) spent over $1.1 billion on cancer research between 2020 and 2025\. Of that, $34 million went to pancreatic cancer. They named two researchers doing important work: Dr. Franco Vizeacoumar at the University of Saskatchewan, working on new treatment approaches, and Dr. Faiyaz Notta at the University of Toronto, studying how the disease changes over time. A recent $41 million investment in cancer prevention will also include some work on pancreatic cancer. **What’s missing:** The response didn’t commit to national rules for genetic testing or promise that the government would cover the cost of that testing. It didn’t mention helping patients pay for travel to reach clinical trial sites — a huge barrier for people outside major cities, especially in Atlantic Canada. These were key parts of what the petition asked for. **Our take:** This response is a start, not a finish. The language is positive. The structural changes at the pCPA are real. But there’s a gap between policy language and what patients actually experience, and the petition’s most specific asks still need solid commitments. We will continue to push for those. This petition put pancreatic cancer on the record in Parliament. Our job now is to keep it there. ![](https://heathercutler.ca/content/images/2026/09/IMG_2892.jpeg) **Breakthrough Discoveries** **Daraxonrasib: Major Trial Results — With Context** We need to talk about daraxonrasib carefully. The numbers are strong — and we’ve seen strong numbers before that didn’t lead where people hoped. But many in the community are already calling this the biggest development since FOLFIRINOX. Revolution Medicines announced results from a large Phase 3 trial (the final stage of testing before a drug can be approved). Their drug, daraxonrasib, is a daily pill that targets KRAS — a gene mutation found in about 95% of pancreatic cancers. For years, KRAS was thought to be impossible to target with drugs. That’s changing. In patients whose cancer had already been treated once and come back, daraxonrasib nearly doubled survival time: **13.2 months compared to 6.7 months on standard chemotherapy.** At a major research meeting in San Diego, the company also showed data from earlier-stage trials where the drug was given as a first treatment. Combined with chemo, 58% of patients saw their tumors shrink. Used alone, 47% responded — with 92% having their disease held in check and no serious side effects. The U.S. FDA moved fast. They approved expanded access — meaning patients can get the drug through their doctors before final approval — within 48 hours of receiving the request. Former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer in December 2025 and told he had three to four months to live, went on *60 Minutes* in April. He shared that the drug had shrunk his tumors by 76% in four months. He was honest about the side effects — bad skin reactions and peeling — but he’s alive and speaking publicly. **What this means — and what it doesn’t.** These are the best numbers we’ve seen in a large pancreatic cancer trial in a long time. But “median survival” means half of patients did better and half didn’t. We don’t yet know how long the drug keeps working, what happens when cancers find a way around it, or when it might be available in Canada. The full data will be shown at ASCO (a major cancer conference) in late May. **What you can do:** If you have metastatic pancreatic cancer that has already been treated, ask your cancer doctor about the expanded access program. If you’re in Canada, knowing about this drug now matters — the sooner we push for Canadian access, the shorter the wait. **Mayo Clinic AI: Finding Cancer Before Doctors Can See It** Here’s the thing about pancreatic cancer — often the cancer itself isn’t what makes it so deadly. It’s the timing. By the time most people are diagnosed, the cancer has already spread too far for surgery. The Mayo Clinic is working on changing that. They built an AI tool called REDMOD that reads routine CT scans — the kind people get for all sorts of reasons, like back pain or stomach issues. The AI looks for tiny changes in the pancreas that happen before a visible tumor forms. These are changes too small for the human eye to spot. In testing across nearly 2,000 scans, the AI caught 73% of cancers at a middle point of about 16 months before a doctor would normally find them. For cancers more than two years before diagnosis, the AI found nearly three times as many as expert doctors working without it. This isn’t available in hospitals yet. A real-world trial is being planned. But if it works in practice, it could mean that people getting CT scans for other reasons could be flagged for early pancreatic cancer — when surgery can still save lives. **Blood Tests: Getting Closer to Early Detection** Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found two new proteins in blood — called ANPEP and PIGR — that are higher in people with early pancreatic cancer. When combined with two existing markers, the four-test panel was **91.9% accurate overall** and caught **87.5% of stage I and II cancers**. Only 5% of healthy people got a false alarm. A separate blood test called PancreaSure is now available for sale in the U.S. with Medicare coverage. It measures five markers, catches about 78% of early cancers, and works even for the 10–15% of patients whose bodies don’t make the most common marker (CA19-9). These tests aren’t ready for everyone yet. But for people at high risk — because of family history or genetic factors — they’re here now, and they’re better than what we had last year. **Immunotherapy: Long-Term Vaccine Data** Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering shared six-year results from a personalized cancer vaccine. The vaccine is custom-made for each patient using their tumor’s unique genetic profile. Of the patients whose immune systems responded to the vaccine, 87.5% were alive six years after surgery. Of those who didn’t respond, only 25% were still alive. This is a small group of patients — eight in each group — so the numbers are early. But the direction matters: a vaccine that teaches your immune system to attack your specific cancer. A larger trial with about 260 patients is now running worldwide. **More Canadian Updates** ![](https://heathercutler.ca/content/images/2026/09/IMG_2893.jpeg) **Nova Scotia Makes Clinical Trial History** Nova Scotia became the first province in Canada to connect patients with clinical trials through a health card opt-in. When you renew your health card, you can now agree to get information about trials that fit your health profile. The Canadian Cancer Society called it a model for the rest of the country. We agree — but provinces still sitting in a clinical trial desert have a longer road ahead, and geography remains one of the biggest barriers to access. **Marathon of Hope: 15,000 Genomes Mapped** The Terry Fox Research Institute hit a major milestone — **15,000 cancer patient genomes sequenced.** This national database links each patient’s genetic profile with how they responded to treatment, building the foundation for matching future patients with the best options for their specific cancer. **Pancreatic Cancer: 3rd Leading Cause of Cancer Death** The Canadian Cancer Society 2026 report confirmed that pancreatic cancer is now the third leading cause of cancer death in Canada. Death rates are going up. With 254,100 new cancer cases and 87,900 deaths expected this year, and a 42% lifetime risk of getting some form of cancer, the need for better treatments is urgent. ![](https://heathercutler.ca/content/images/2026/09/IMG_2894.jpeg) **Community** PurpleStride 2026 brought tens of thousands of people together across more than 50 cities on April 25, raising nearly $15 million. Celebrity supporters included Jean Trebek (widow of *Jeopardy!* host Alex Trebek), Lisa Niemi Swayze, and a *Star Trek* team that included Kitty Swink — a 22-year pancreatic cancer survivor. The patient stories this month stayed with us. Rose Black — who has survived pancreatic cancer twice — reminded everyone: “Sometimes you have to be your own advocate.” A 70-year-old woman at UW Medicine has been living with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer for 12 years. And Elizabeth Rountree said it plainly: “Stage IV is just a label. It does not mean immediate death.” **LOOKING AHEAD** - **May 29 – June 2:** Full daraxonrasib data at ASCO — watch for how long the drug keeps working and quality-of-life details - **May 30:** Craig’s Cause Pancreatic Cancer Society continues its signature fundraiser Kicking PancreAS, stopping next in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador - **Late 2026/Early 2027:** Expected FDA approval application for daraxonrasib - **August 2026:** Another KRAS-targeting drug (MRTX1133) expected to finish its trial - **Ongoing:** BioNTech’s personalized cancer vaccine trial continues enrolling patients worldwide **Final Thoughts** There are months in this space where you’re reaching for good news. **April wasn’t one of them. The data was real.** But we’ve learned — from Heather, from every patient and family who’s been on this road — that hope has to be the kind with roots. Not the kind that falls apart when a drug doesn’t get approved, or when a trial you were counting on doesn’t open in your province, or when the numbers that looked good in a press release turn out to be more complicated in practice. So here’s what we’ll say. **The science is moving faster now. The tools are getting sharper. The advocacy is getting through.** And we will be here — every month — reading the research, sharing it honestly, and pushing for the day when a pancreatic cancer diagnosis doesn’t carry the weight it carries now. That’s not wishful thinking. **That’s the kind of hope that does something.** *Heather’s Hope is published monthly by The Heather Cutler Foundation. Have a story to share? Know of an advance we missed? Contact us at newsletter@heathercutler.ca*