PHILADELPHIA — Irene Blair was expected to have another six to eight months to live in June, after her pancreatic cancer rapidly advanced to stage 4 less than a year after her initial diagnosis.
A new drug being tested in clinical trials around the world, including at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center, was the 59-year-old grandmother from Newark, Del.’s best hope for more time.
The drug belongs to a class of pharmaceuticals long considered the holy grail of cancer research. It is a KRAS inhibitor, capable of blocking a protein that fuels an especially deadly cancer. Only 13% of pancreatic cancer patients are still alive five years after their diagnosis, the highest mortality rate of all cancers…