MassBio CEO & President Kendalle Burlin O’Connell originally posted this to LinkedIn:
“Undruggable.” For decades, that’s what researchers called RAS, the mutation behind about 90 percent of pancreatic cancers. Dr. Brian Wolpin of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has a different answer: not yet.
He shared it yesterday at the MassBioHub, where we hosted our fourth annual Women’s Health Symposium with the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators. This year’s focus was pancreatic cancer, which is personal for this community. The Caucus lost two members to the disease last year, Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante and Rep. Carol Doherty.
There is real reason for hope. In August, the FDA approved the first targeted therapy aimed at RAS in pancreatic cancer. Dr. Wolpin co-led that trial, and on Wednesday he wrote two prescriptions for it in his clinic.
He was also candid that this is a beginning. Pancreatic cancer eventually finds a way around the drug, and The New York Times this week reports on how Dana-Farber’s Dr. Andrew Aguirre, Break Through Cancer, and MIT’s Tyler Jacks are working to understand why. Dr. Wolpin expects combination trials to open within the next year.
Katie Torrence was diagnosed early in 2020, and her care team knew exactly what to do. She is thriving today, and a force of nature in patient advocacy. “I’m the messenger,” she told us. “I should be what everybody has.”
Getting there means making sure the science reaches every patient. Dr. Wolpin described genetic testing and tumor sequencing moving from academic centers into community practices, a real win that isn’t finished. Michael DAmore of Genentech spoke about bringing clinical trials to community sites, so patients don’t have to live near a major cancer center to get access.
Rep. Carole Fiola summed it up: “Innovation is half the work. The other half is getting it to the patient in time, and that half belongs to all of us.” Massachusetts did that for breast cancer screening. The Caucus’s bill to create a standing Pancreatic Cancer Advisory Council at DPH is the next step.
Thank you to Rep. Fiola, Katie, Dr. Wolpin, Michael, and everyone who joined us.
Thank you to our sponsors for their continued support:
Sustaining: Lilly | Massachusetts Life Sciences Center | Thermo Fisher Scientific | Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Supporting: Genentech | Ipsen | Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP | UCB
2026 Women’s Health Symposium
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