A consultant medical oncologist has described the results of a trial drug used in the treatment of pancreatic cancer as "really astounding".
Professor Austin Duffy was speaking after a conference in the US heard that trials on some 500 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer in the US, Europe and Asia found very positive results from a new daily drug for treatment.
The trial found that the pill, called daraxonrasib, had been shown to double on average the survival time for some patients compared with chemotherapy.
Pancreatic cancer affects around 600 people in Ireland each year and the most common type is adenocarcinoma.
Prof Duffy, a consultant at the Mater Hospital in Dublin, said that the drug is a "very targeted therapy" that works against a protein called KRAS.
Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, he said: "KRAS is like a switch inside the cell and in a pancreatic cancer situation and some other cancers as well, this switch is permanently turned on causing the cell to become a cancer cell."
Prof Duffy said there was never any way to directly target it with a drug and the treatment for pancreatic cancer has generally been chemotherapy.
He said that the development of the drug was the result of many years of research, science and innovation and described the results as "really astounding".
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"The people who took the pill, who took the tablet, had on average double the survival," he said, compared to patients who were not on the trial drug.
"That in itself is obviously very important for the people involved and the treatment was well tolerated and just overall better."
He said that from a science point of view, the treatment was a "significant step forward" that some progress has been made. However, he said that it is unfortunately not a cure.
"We have to sort of remember that and unfortunately, ultimately this is still a very tough cancer even for the people who are taking the pill," Prof Duffy said.
Prof Duffy said that the drug is currently only available through trials and it is still several years away from being approved by the European drugs agency. He said that even then, it could be at least another two years before it would be available to people in Ireland.
"I don't know when that approval will happen," he said.
"But also within Ireland, we unfortunately then struggle to provide access to drugs even after they're approved by the European agency."
Prof Duffy said that the reality is that the drug will not be available in Ireland outside of the context of a clinical trial.
Meanwhile, the Head of Research at the Irish Cancer Society has described the trial as a "major milestone".
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with David McCullough, Claire Kilty said that it was a revolutionised treatment which gives people "precious time".
She said that for pancreatic cancer patients in Ireland, timelines for when this drug might be more available can vary, as the next step is getting approval in Europe which can take a couple of years.
Ms Kilty said that that is why the Irish Cancer Society is focused on getting Irish patients into clinical trials for early access to potentially life changing drugs.
