CONTACT US
Editor’s note: The “Research Spotlight” series is written by Dr. Anna Berkenblit, PanCAN’s Chief Scientific and Medical Officer. Each month, Dr. Berkenblit shares her insights into the latest news and research in pancreatic cancer. Follow Dr. Berkenblit on X and LinkedIn.
As we reflect on 2025, one thing is clear: meaningful progress continued in the fight against pancreatic cancer this year. While the disease remains one of the most challenging cancers and is the only major cancer with a five-year survival rate below 20%, this year brought growing momentum across research, clinical innovation and patient advocacy. Advances in early detection, precision medicine, multidisciplinary collaboration and data-driven discovery all underscored what is possible when researchers, clinicians, partners, and patients work with urgency and shared purpose. Looking back, we faced some serious challenges, including uncertainty in federal research funding, yet we have much to celebrate.
Bipartisan support for the federal government’s investment in scientific research has long been a cornerstone on Capitol Hill. But this year’s proposed cuts, funding freezes, and the government shutdown slowed progress and raised serious concerns about losing a generation of scientists. In response, our community mobilized and made their voices impossible to ignore, prompting Congress to reaffirm strong bipartisan support for cancer research in their current spending bills. Now, we must ensure these bills pass so that promising, life-saving research can move forward without interruption.
Amid these challenges, 2025 also marked the introduction of PanCAN Research Recovery Grants, designed to protect highly promising research at risk due to funding interruptions. These bridge grants help ensure that important scientific momentum is not lost at a time when grant funding remains uncertain across many institutions. By sustaining projects with the highest potential for impact, these grants safeguard the progress already made this year allowing the discoveries of tomorrow to continue taking shape and positioning the field for even stronger advances in 2026. The Research Recovery Grants reinforce PanCAN’s role as a key funder of pancreatic cancer research.
— Howard Crawford, PhD, Henry Ford Health System and PanCAN Scientific and Medical Advisory Board Member
Breakthrough Science and Research Milestones
After decades of being considered “undruggable,” RAS, which is mutated in over 90% of pancreatic cancers, is finally “druggable.” 2025 saw tremendous progress, with the most advanced clinical trial, RASOLUTE 302, recently completing enrollment. This trial is testing an investigational drug, Revolution Medicines’ daraxonrasib (RMC-6236), that targets RAS in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Results from this phase 3 trial comparing daraxonrasib to chemotherapy are expected to be announced in 2026. Whereas available RAS inhibitors only target one mutation that is present in a very small subset of patients with pancreatic cancer, having a multi-selective inhibitor that targets RAS mutations more broadly has the potential to make a significant impact in the treatment of this disease.
The importance of this work is further underscored by Revolution Medicines’ receipt of an FDA Priority Review Voucher for daraxonrasib, an achievement that recognizes the urgent unmet need for new treatments for pancreatic cancer.
Daraxonrasib holds promise to become the first of what we hope will be many RAS-directed therapies to benefit patients. Many other RAS-targeting investigational strategies, including those that address resistance to a RAS inhibitor given alone, are being tested in the lab and clinic, and these have great potential to improve outcomes for patients with pancreatic cancer.
In 2025, the pace of personalized, data-driven research continued to accelerate. PanCAN’s SPARK health data integration platform is transforming how researchers access and analyze patient data to generate insights faster and more collaboratively than ever before. SPARK’s integration of clinical, genomic, pathology, radiology and patient-reported data is helping uncover patterns that better explain disease progression and treatment response.
A particularly exciting development was PanCAN’s partnership with Acurion to apply its AI-enhanced platform, OncoGaze™, to SPARK’s digitized pathology images. By using advanced computational models to identify tumor patterns and features, the collaboration aims to uncover actionable biomarkers such as homologous recombination deficiency (HRD). Identifying HRD and similar signatures through pathology images could lead to more rapid and cost-effective means of therapy selection and present patients with more optimal first line options.
— Sudheer Doss, PhD, PanCAN’s Chief Business Officer
Momentum in Early Detection
Early detection remains one of the greatest opportunities to improve survival, and this year was marked by progress. PanCAN’s Early Detection Initiative (EDI) continued to advance research toward understanding how changes in blood sugar may impact pancreatic cancer development and diagnosis. The study is also gathering information about whether imaging at the time of new-onset diabetes leads to earlier detection of pancreatic cancer. 2025 marked a significant milestone with the completion of enrollment of more than 8,800 participants into EDI, allowing for continued monitoring and data analyses in the coming years. We look forward to sharing data from the one-year follow-up in 2026.
A New Treatment Option for Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors
This year saw the FDA approval of a new treatment option for patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs). CABOMETYX® (cabozantinib) is a multi-target tyrosine kinase inhibitor that was approved for patients whose tumors progressed after prior therapy. This approval is an important step forward toward expanding treatment options for all patients with pancreatic cancer, including PNETs, which are a rare subtype of pancreatic cancer.
Research Progress Highlighted at ASCO 2025
This year’s ASCO Annual Meeting served as a major platform for pancreatic cancer research. One of the notable pancreatic cancer highlights came from a phase 3 trial evaluating Novocure’s Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) for locally advanced pancreatic cancer, cases typically not treatable with surgery. Adding TTFields to standard chemotherapy (gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel) modestly improved overall survival, pain-free survival, and distant progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy alone. Already approved for glioblastoma and lung cancer, TTFields offer hope as a new therapeutic option, with ongoing research refining how best to integrate this approach into treatment.
Researchers also presented data on novel biomarker-driven treatment approaches as well as studies examining disparities in access to early detection, high-quality care and clinical trials. These insights reinforced both the complexity of pancreatic cancer and the breadth of research underway to address it.
Scientific Summit 2025: Together, We Are Catalysts for Change
PanCAN’s annual Scientific Summit brought together leading scientists and rising investigators for two days of deep scientific exchange. The meeting served as an incubator for new ideas, highlighting cutting-edge discoveries in immunotherapy response patterns, mechanisms of metastasis, innovations in tumor microenvironment biology and next-generation early detection tools. The Summit demonstrated the strength of the pancreatic cancer research community and reaffirmed that collaboration across all disciplines is essential to accelerating progress. In particular, the participation of early-career investigators underscored the importance of supporting the next generation of scientific leaders.
Support for Patients and Families
This year also brought important advancements in patient-centered support. PanCAN launched a new partnership with Smart Patients, expanding access to an online community where patients and caregivers can connect, share experiences and learn from one another in real time. This collaboration represents another step forward in PanCAN’s commitment to empowering people with the support and information they need throughout their pancreatic cancer journey.
PanCAN Research Grants
Amid federal funding challenges, we were excited to announce PanCAN’s new research grants, supporting projects from early detection and tumor biology to health equity and emerging therapeutics. These grants help fuel innovative work with the potential to shift paradigms in the field and are part of PanCAN’s initial research investment this fiscal year, with another round of funding to be announced.
Across the year’s monthly research highlights, several themes emerged: the growing impact of integrated data; the continued importance of disparities research; the crucial contributions of young investigators; and the power of collaboration across institutions, disciplines and sectors. These themes reflect a research landscape that is dynamic, evolving, and deeply committed to improving outcomes for all.
Looking Ahead
Although pancreatic cancer remains the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States, 2025 demonstrated clear and encouraging progress. Advances in AI-powered diagnostics, precision medicine, early detection research, clinical trial innovation, patient support systems and scientific funding all contributed to a year defined by momentum and purpose. Each discovery, partnership and initiative brings us closer to earlier diagnoses, more effective therapies and better outcomes for patients and families. PanCAN remains committed to our advocacy work protecting and increasing federal funding for pancreatic cancer so that scientists can continue their important work.
As we close out 2025, the message is clear that progress in pancreatic cancer research is accelerating, so that we can turn science into survival. From strengthening scientific infrastructure to expanding patient resources and fostering powerful new collaborations, the field is moving forward with determination and hope.
PanCAN remains committed to advancing progress against pancreatic cancer for patients today and in the future. We unite the pancreatic cancer community and push every boundary to create a world where survival is the norm — not the exception. Together, we move toward a future where early detection is routine, treatments are more effective and better tolerated, and all patients with pancreatic cancer will thrive.
My heartfelt thanks go to PanCAN’s incredible supporters: our donors, volunteers, advocates and more, whose unwavering commitment propels our mission and makes continued progress possible.
