Two Cancer Breakthroughs Hit in the Same Month

Rockefeller University researchers have published phase 1 trial results for a redesigned cancer immunotherapy drug called 2141-V11, while Memorial Sloan Kettering presented clinical data on the pancreatic cancer drug daraxonrasib. Both produced meaningful results within weeks of each other in early 2026.

Daraxonrasib: Real Trial Results, Not Just a Label

MSK gastrointestinal oncologist Dr. Eileen O'Reilly presented phase 1/2 trial results for daraxonrasib at the AACR Annual Meeting in April 2026. The trial enrolled patients with stage 4 metastatic pancreatic cancer who had received zero prior treatment — the hardest-to-treat population. Chemotherapy is currently the only standard of care.

Daraxonrasib targets mutations in the RAS gene, which drives over 90% of pancreatic cancer cases, according to MSK. It's taken orally, once a day. No IV drip. No hospital stays for infusion.

"This drug is potentially going to be a landmark shift in how we treat pancreatic cancer," Dr. O'Reilly told MSK directly. "The ability to target RAS mutations that drive so much of pancreatic cancer is huge and has been missing from our treatments."

A second MSK trial of the same drug — for patients who already went through chemotherapy and relapsed — was running simultaneously.

Pancreatic cancer is projected to become the second most deadly cancer in the United States by 2030, according to MSK. Survival numbers have barely changed in decades.

The CD40 Story: Inject One Tumor, Watch the Rest Die

Researchers at Rockefeller University, led by Jeffrey V. Ravetch, redesigned a class of cancer immunotherapy drugs called CD40 agonist antibodies. These drugs had been studied for over 20 years with consistently disappointing results. Side effects were severe — dangerous inflammation, platelet crashes, liver damage — even at low doses.

Ravetch's team engineered a modified version called 2141-V11 in 2018. The key change: instead of injecting it into the bloodstream, they injected it directly into a tumor.

Results from the phase 1 clinical trial were published in the journal Cancer Cell, according to ScienceDaily.

The trial involved 12 patients with metastatic cancers. 6 saw tumors shrink. 2 experienced complete remission — their cancers disappeared entirely.

That's a 50% tumor shrinkage rate and a 17% complete remission rate in a first-in-human trial. Complete remissions in metastatic cancer trials at phase 1 are rare.

Tumors that weren't injected also disappeared. The treatment appeared to trigger a body-wide immune response — not just a localized reaction at the injection site.

"Seeing these significant shrinkages and even complete remission in such a small subset of patients is quite remarkable," said Juan Osorio, visiting assistant professor in Ravetch's lab and a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who is listed as first author on the study.

The study was published March 16, 2026.

What This Means for Patients

If you or someone you know has pancreatic cancer, the daraxonrasib trial data from Dr. O'Reilly's team at MSK is worth discussing with your oncologist. Clinical trial access exists now.

If you have any metastatic solid tumor cancer, the 2141-V11 CD40 trial from Rockefeller is worth tracking. It's still early — 12 patients is not a definitive sample — but the mechanism is real and the results are significant.

Two drugs, two mechanisms, two sets of human data — one month.