SCOTTSDALE, AZ — John Martell was on vacation in Europe when abdominal pain led to a diagnosis that changed everything: stage four pancreatic cancer that had already spread throughout his body.
"Your whole life stops. It's like you hit your head and woke up and you're in an alternate universe, right? Where all of a sudden you're on vacation one week, the next week you're in a recliner having infusions for chemotherapy," Martell said.
Martell went through chemotherapy and radiation, but his cancer wasn't responding.
"It was devastating," his wife, Patty Peyton Martell, said. "Doctor B. said we would have been talking about hospice. And that's not, you know, a word that he would throw around lightly, and that certainly got our attention."
Dr. Erkut Borazanci, Director of Oncology at HonorHealth Research Institute, had another option: an investigational pill called daraxonrasib. Martell got early access to the drug through HonorHealth Research Institute before the FDA approved it.
"It targets a protein called KRAS, that really is this on switch that just keeps on making these cancers grow," Dr. Borazanci said.
In a randomized trial, Dr. Borazanci says the drug nearly doubled survival compared with standard chemotherapy for people with advanced pancreatic cancer — a milestone for researchers who have struggled for decades to block one of the key drivers of the disease.
"So, a lot of researchers around the world are now working on, hey, this is a great start. How can we build upon this?" Dr. Borazanci said. "I'm excited to see what the future holds for John, and so many other people in his situation."
Martell says he noticed a difference within weeks.
"There's some days for the first time I wake up, and the first thought isn't, 'Oh, I have cancer.' It's, 'I feel normal,'" he said.
Now, Martell is getting back to the life he loves — and looking ahead to a major milestone with his wife.
"We have a grandchild on the way. Number one," Martell said. "So those are the things that make a big difference in quality of life. And this this medication gives that."
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