Cutting-Edge Drug Shows Promise for Patients with NRAS-Driven Melanoma

Newswise — A research team from Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah (the U) reports that a groundbreaking pathway-targeted therapy could be an effective treatment for certain melanoma patients and fill an unmet clinical need for patients with advanced disease. Martin McMahon, PhD , senior director of preclinical translation at Huntsman Cancer Institute and professor of dermatology at the U, evaluated an investigative compound of the drug daraxonrasib in NRAS -driven melanoma . NRAS -driven melanoma is an aggressive type of skin cancer driven by mutations in the NRAS gene. Daraxonrasib, developed by Revolution Medicines , targets and inhibits RAS, a protein that drives cancer when altered. NRAS is a subtype of RAS that is mutated in roughly a quarter of melanoma cases. The results of daraxonrasib as a treatment for metastatic pancreatic cancer - in which it doubled patients' life expectancy in a Phase 3 clinical trial - recently received a standing ovation from thousands of physicians at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting . Huntsman Cancer Institute was one of just 60 hospitals worldwide who offered that trial ( RASolute 302 ). "The remarkable success of daraxonrasib in the treatment of pancreatic cancer indicates that we are in an era where even the most recalcitrant RAS -driven cancers can be treated," says McMahon. "Our data strongly supports the potential future clinical utility of treating patients with NRAS -driven melanoma with daraxonrasib. " McMahon and his team evaluated the effectiveness of the RAS inhibitor in numerous preclinical models, including melanoma samples from patients. The results of the study have been published in Cancer Research , a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research . "All our NRAS -driven models were very responsive to this RAS inhibitor. It's actually quite rare that we see shrinkage of NRAS -driven tumors," says Mona Foth, PhD , research scientist at Huntsman Cancer Institute and first author of the publication. "It's inspiring to think that these results could potentially lead to a new patient therapy that will help them overcome their disease."