Registration is open for the 2026 Women’s Health Symposium, October 1, co-hosted by MassBio and the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators. Open to all MassBio members for the first time.
On May 31, a Dana-Farber oncologist put a survival curve on a screen in Chicago, and the room stood up for 42 seconds. On October 1, he is coming to Boston to talk about the patients that curve has not reached.
Driving the news: Dr. Brian Wolpin presented Phase 3 results at the ASCO plenary showing daraxonrasib, a once-daily oral RAS(ON) inhibitor, nearly doubled median overall survival versus chemotherapy in previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer: 13.2 months to 6.7. Wolpin co-led the global trial with Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Dr. Eileen O’Reilly, and the data published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine. The applause started when the curve appeared, before he was through the slide.
Why it matters: An ovation like that is a measure of how long the field went without one. RAS drives more than 90% of pancreatic cancers and shrugged off four decades of attempts to drug it. The arithmetic held: fewer than 15% of patients survive five years, and most are found too late for surgery.
The other half of the problem: Daraxonrasib works in the second line, after chemotherapy has already failed. It does nothing for the woman whose vague symptoms get filed under something else for a year. Early detection is where survival is actually decided, and it has had no equivalent moment.
By the numbers: Between 2001 and 2018, pancreatic cancer incidence among adults under 55 climbed 2.36% a year in women, compared with 0.62% in men. The gap is widest in the youngest patients, and researchers still cannot fully explain it.
That is the conversation we are bringing to the table on October 1.
Who you’ll hear from:
- Dr. Brian Wolpin, Chief of the Division of Gastrointestinal Oncology and Director of the Hale Family Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He was a principal investigator on the RASolute 302 trial, chairs the NCI’s Pancreatic Cancer Detection Consortium Steering Committee, and served on the Commonwealth’s Special Commission to Study Pancreatic Cancer.
- Katie Torrence, pancreatic cancer survivor and patient advocate. Diagnosed at 53 in 2020, she was one of the fortunate ones: her tumor was caught early, and she began treatment 23 days later. She has spent the years since on Beacon Hill arguing that her outcome should be unremarkable. “I shouldn’t be a unicorn, I should be the norm,” she told legislators at Cancer Action Day this March.
- Rep. Carole Fiola, State Representative for the 6th Bristol District and an at-large board member of the Women’s Caucus.
The bottom line: Innovation is only half the work. Getting it to the patients who need it, on a timeline that matters, is the other half.
Details:
- When: Wednesday, October 1, 2026 | 9:45 AM to 12:00 PM, followed by a networking lunch
- Where: MassBioHub
- Who: Open to all MassBio members. Legislators and staff, please register here.
