Kevan Shokat '86 co-founded the company behind daraxonrasib, a new pancreatic cancer drug showing results that nearly double patient survival.
Katie Pelletier ’03
May 13, 2026
A front-page New York Times story published this week traces the decades of scientific persistence behind daraxonrasib, a pancreatic cancer drug moving toward FDA approval—and the pivotal role of Reed alum Kevan Shokat ’86, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at UCSF, in making it possible.
At a time when many researchers had given up on KRAS, a cancer-driving protein long considered “undruggable,” Shokat kept looking for a way in. After screening more than 500 molecules, he found one. The discovery led to a landmark 2013 paper and helped re-energize cancer research worldwide.
Shokat’s award-winning breakthroughs in targeting KRAS opened a pathway to a new class of medicines aimed at mutations that drive deadly cancers, including pancreatic, lung, and colon tumors. Phase 3 clinical trial results of daraxonrasib showed that patients who took the medication lived a median of 13.2 months—nearly double the median survival of patients treated with chemotherapy, the standard treatment for this form of advanced pancreatic cancer.
Engineered by Revolution Medicines, a clinical-stage precision oncology company Shokat co-founded, daraxonrasib has received Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, a status intended to expedite its path toward approval on the basis of its promising clinical trial data. In May, the FDA authorized Revolution Medicines to initiate an expanded access program, allowing eligible patients to access the drug outside of a clinical trial.
The drug recently made headlines when former Senator Ben Sasse, who was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer in December 2025 and given three to four months to live, shared that it had shrunk his tumors by 76%.
Two drugs targeting KRAS mutations have received FDA approval: sotorasib and adagrasib, which are used to treat lung and colorectal cancers.
Shokat received the Sjöberg Prize in cancer research in 2023 from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which recognized him as the researcher who first succeeded in blocking KRAS. He also received Reed’s Vollum Award, which honors exceptional scientific achievement in the Northwest.
Read our 2024 profile of Kevan Shokat, "The Miracle Worker."