Former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse says a newly approved pancreatic cancer drug has dramatically reduced the size of his tumors and eased much of the severe pain he experienced after being diagnosed with advanced disease late last year.
Sasse, 54, has metastatic pancreatic cancer that has spread to multiple parts of his body. In a recent interview with the American Enterprise Institute, he credited daraxonrasib — now sold under the brand name Rasonque — with giving him substantially more time with his family than doctors initially expected.
Sasse described the medication as a “miracle drug” and said it was “shrinking my tumors like crazy.”
The former Republican senator has been unusually candid about the seriousness of his prognosis.
During an April appearance on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Sasse said doctors initially told him he likely had only three to four months to live after his December diagnosis.
His cancer originated in the pancreas but had spread to areas including his liver and lungs.
At that point, Sasse reported that treatment with daraxonrasib had already reduced his overall tumor volume by 76%.
Subsequent updates have indicated continued tumor shrinkage. SurvivorNet reported that Sasse’s tumors had declined by more than 80% by July while he remained on the treatment.
Sasse has stressed that the drug has not cured his cancer.
“I’m not going to make it,” he said during the AEI discussion, while adding that he expects the treatment to provide him “a lot of extra time.”
I spoke to @BenSasse in March, and asked him how long he thought he had left. He said, then: “The trial’s going really well. I would love to see the kickoff of Nebraska’s football season”–Sept. 5.
Today Bowling Green plays Nebraska as the college football season starts. And…
— Tunku Varadarajan (@tunkuv) September 5, 2026
He also said his pain had fallen to roughly 10% of what he experienced during November and December, when tumors were pressing against his spine, and doctors had not yet determined the cause.
His response has come as daraxonrasib itself reaches a major milestone.
The Food and Drug Administration approved Rasonque on Aug. 26 for adults with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma who have previously received at least one systemic therapy or who are not candidates for multiagent treatment.
The once-daily pill is the first approved therapy in its class designed to broadly target active forms of RAS, a family of proteins that play a major role in driving the growth of pancreatic tumors.
Approximately 90% to 95% of pancreatic cancers diagnosed in the United States are pancreatic adenocarcinomas, according to figures cited by the FDA.
For decades, one of the biggest challenges in treating the disease has been the biology of the RAS pathway.
More than 90% of pancreatic tumors have alterations affecting RAS signaling, particularly mutations in the KRAS gene. Those mutations can effectively leave cellular growth signals permanently switched on, allowing cancer cells to continue multiplying.
Researchers have historically struggled to develop medicines capable of successfully targeting those proteins.
Daraxonrasib was designed to attack multiple forms of active RAS rather than focusing on only one individual mutation.
The clinical data behind the FDA approval showed a substantial improvement compared with chemotherapy in previously treated patients.
In a randomized Phase 3 trial involving 500 people with metastatic pancreatic cancer, patients receiving daraxonrasib had a median overall survival of 13.2 months, compared with 6.7 months among those receiving standard chemotherapy.
Median progression-free survival — the amount of time before the cancer began worsening — was 7.2 months with daraxonrasib compared with 3.6 months with chemotherapy.
About 33% of patients in the drug’s principal mutation group experienced measurable tumor shrinkage, compared with roughly 11% of patients receiving chemotherapy.
Researchers also reported that patients taking daraxonrasib experienced slower worsening of pain and generally preserved their quality of life longer.
The drug is not without side effects. The FDA lists rash, diarrhea, mouth inflammation, nausea, fatigue, vomiting, abdominal pain, swelling, decreased appetite and bleeding among the most commonly reported adverse reactions.
Sasse previously told STAT that he experienced significant side effects but believed the treatment had increased both the quantity and quality of the time remaining to him.
