With 44,000+ oncology professionals in attendance, ASCO 2026 may have been the most consequential in recent years. From a standing ovation for pancreatic cancer to the first positive sarcoma trial in history, here's everything that mattered at Chicago's McCormick Place this week.
Pancreatic cancer finally has a drug worth celebrating
For decades, pancreatic cancer has resisted almost every new treatment thrown at it. That changed this week. Daraxonrasib, a RAS(ON) multi-selective inhibitor tested in the RASolute 302 trial, cut the risk of death by 60% compared with standard chemotherapy in patients with previously treated metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma — doubling both overall and progression-free survival. When lead investigator Dr. Brian Wolpin of Dana-Farber revealed the survival curve at the Plenary Session, the audience gave a rousing 42-second standing ovation. Results were simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
60% reduction in risk of death vs. chemotherapy (RASolute 302)
ASCO experts called it "a game changer in pancreatic cancer." The drug met all primary and key secondary endpoints, and the benefit extended to patients across RAS mutation subtypes — including RAS wild-type. It is already in expanded access and heading toward a priority FDA review.
Beyond the data: AI comes for the clinical trial itself
While the science dominated the main stage at McCormick Place, the corridors told a parallel story: the business of running clinical trials is being rapidly automated. Timed to coincide with the meeting, Medable — a clinical development platform used in nearly 400 trials across 70 countries — announced its Agentic Accelerator Program, designed to help life sciences companies deploy AI agents across the full clinical lifecycle, from protocol initiation to study close-out.
Medable Launches Agentic Accelerator Program
The program pairs sponsors and CROs with a dedicated team of AI clinical development experts and forward-deployed engineers to accelerate deployment of agentic workflows. It builds on Medable's Agent Studio platform, which combines no-code agent creation, human-in-the-loop oversight, GxP-ready compliance controls, and MCP connectors across clinical and enterprise systems. The company notes that only 22% of life sciences leaders have scaled AI across the enterprise to date — a gap the program is designed to close.
Read the full press release
Two trials, two new contenders for the lung cancer standard
Ivonescimab, a bispecific antibody targeting both PD-1 and VEGF, beat tislelizumab plus chemotherapy head-to-head in overall survival in advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer (HARMONi-6, HR 0.66). The data earned a plenary slot, though the China-only study population drew scrutiny over generalizability to a global cohort. Meanwhile, selpercatinib impressed in the adjuvant setting: the LIBRETTO-432 trial showed it significantly reduced recurrence risk in resected stage IB–IIIA RET fusion-positive NSCLC, laying groundwork for a new molecularly guided standard of care after surgery.
Less surgery, no survival penalty
The SENOMAC trial delivered welcome de-escalation news: patients with early-stage breast cancer and limited sentinel lymph node spread can safely skip axillary lymph node dissection without compromising survival — and avoid the substantial long-term arm morbidity that comes with it. In the metastatic setting, updated ASCENT-04 data continued to build the case for sacituzumab govitecan plus pembrolizumab in PD-L1-positive triple-negative breast cancer, with additional biomarker subgroup analyses presented.
The Galleri blood test: promising, but not yet proven
The NHS-Galleri trial — 142,942 asymptomatic adults, three years of annual blood draws — gave the world its first randomized controlled trial data on a multi-cancer early detection test. The study missed its primary endpoint of reducing combined stage III/IV diagnoses, but investigators found a 14% reduction in stage IV cancers, a 19% increase in stage I–III diagnoses, 21% fewer clinically detected cancers, and 20% fewer emergency cancer presentations. Test specificity reached 99.55%, and site-of-origin predictions were accurate 87–92% of the time. Unanswered questions about overdiagnosis and long-term survival benefit remain.
A historic first in dedifferentiated liposarcoma
The SARC041 trial achieved something that has never been done before: a positive phase 3 result in dedifferentiated liposarcoma. Abemaciclib (Verzenio), a CDK4 inhibitor, reduced the risk of progression or death by 62% versus placebo. Median progression-free survival jumped from 1.5 months to 9.7 months. For a disease that has had no effective systemic options, this is a foundational shift.
9.7 months median PFS with abemaciclib vs. 1.5 months with placebo (SARC041)
Perioperative apalutamide earns its plenary spot
The final analysis of PROTEUS confirmed that adding apalutamide — an androgen receptor pathway inhibitor — to androgen deprivation therapy both before and after radical prostatectomy significantly improves outcomes in high-risk localized prostate cancer. The plenary presentation underscored a growing trend toward treatment intensification in curative-intent disease.
Tafasitamab moves up to first line in DLBCL
The frontMIND phase 3 trial showed that adding tafasitamab and lenalidomide to standard R-CHOP reduces tumor progression in newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, introducing a more aggressive front-line option for a cancer where many patients still relapse after initial therapy.
GLP-1s, fasting, and yoga all make the cancer agenda
The press program dedicated notable space to lifestyle factors, including a propensity-matched analysis of GLP-1 receptor agonists (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro) and their potential to slow cancer progression across seven solid tumors, pilot trial data on short-term fasting in ovarian cancer patients, a phase III yoga trial for cancer survivors with insomnia and mood disturbance, and results from the BWEL weight loss trial in breast cancer. The message from ASCO 2026: what happens outside the clinic matters too.
