Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most difficult solid tumors to treat. The American Cancer Society estimates about 67,530 new cases and 52,740 deaths in the US in 2026.
Despite accounting for a relatively small share of cancer diagnoses, pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the US, reflecting the urgent need for new treatment strategies in advanced disease.
In a conversation with Xtalks, Dan Schmitt, CEO of Actuate Therapeutics, discussed the company’s work in difficult-to-treat cancers like pancreatic cancer, the development of an oral formulation of elraglusib and the advantages of operating within Texas’ growing life sciences ecosystem.
Actuate Therapeutics’ lead candidate, elraglusib, is designed to inhibit glycogen synthase kinase-3 beta (GSK-3β), a pathway implicated in tumor growth, survival, drug resistance and immune evasion.
The Dallas-Fort Worth-based biopharmaceutical company has advanced elraglusib through Phase I and Phase II clinical trials, including an international randomized controlled trial in the first-line treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer.
In results published in Nature Medicine, elraglusib plus gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel improved median overall survival to 10.1 months compared with 7.2 months for chemotherapy alone, and a one-year survival rate of 44.1% versus 22.3%.
Schmitt said the company has treated more than 500 patients to date across a range of cancer types using the IV formulation of elraglusib. Building on the clinical work with IV dosing, Actuate has also invested in an oral tablet formulation, which Schmitt said could broaden the patient population and reduce the need for infusion-based treatment.
“With the success in the clinic of that formulation, we invested and advanced an oral tablet development program,” Schmitt said. “That will expand the potential patient pool for not just those receiving concomitant IV therapies, but take them out of an infusion chair and put them at home.”
In May 2026, Actuate announced FDA clearance of an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for oral elraglusib, with a planned Phase I/II study initially evaluating the tablet as monotherapy in patients with advanced solid tumors. The study is intended to determine the maximum tolerated dose and recommended Phase II dose, while also assessing safety, pharmacokinetics and preliminary signals of antitumor activity.
Turning “Cold” Tumors Hot in Pancreatic Cancer
Elraglusib is being developed to target not only tumor growth pathways, but also the tumor microenvironment. Schmitt said pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to treat and “immunologically cold,” meaning it has historically been less responsive to immune-based approaches. He said elraglusib may help shift that biology by recruiting immune cells into tumors.
“It actually turns cold tumors hot and visible to the immune system and activates and mobilizes those immune cells to help attack the cancer,” he explained.
The company is also looking beyond pancreatic cancer. Schmitt said Actuate is exploring elraglusib in metastatic melanoma, refractory metastatic colorectal cancer, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and pediatric cancers, while also studying potential synergies between GSK-3 inhibition and RAS inhibition.
Schmitt noted that RAS inhibitors are making progress, but that patients can become refractory. Inhibiting GSK-3β, he said, may help down-regulate escape pathways that allow tumors to bypass RAS-directed treatment.
“This will always be a combination therapeutic approach to down-regulate key pathways, and also address the heterogeneity of pancreatic tumors themselves,” Schmitt said. “We are extending survival, but I think that we want to advance this and, with these new therapeutics, find the right combinations to really make this a cancer that can be more completely dealt with.”
Why Texas Is Gaining Ground as a Life Sciences Hub
Actuate’s development story also reflects the increasingly distributed nature of biotech. Although the company is Dallas-Fort Worth-based, Schmitt said Actuate operates with a geographically distributed team and maintains important scientific relationships outside Texas, including with Northwestern University, the University of Illinois Chicago and Mayo Clinic. The elraglusib asset was invented at the University of Illinois Chicago and evaluated at Northwestern before Actuate spun it out and licensed it from both institutions.
This type of network can allow access to specialized scientific talent without requiring all operations to be concentrated in a single biotech cluster. Schmitt said Actuate has been able to build a “best-of-breed” team over the past ten years that largely works virtually while maintaining close ties to each other and research institutions that remain important to its development work.
At the same time, Actuate’s Texas presence places it within a life sciences ecosystem that has been gaining momentum. Texas has invested heavily in cancer research and commercialization through the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), which has funded more than 2,200 awards and awarded more than $4 billion for cancer research, product development and prevention since 2010.
CPRIT continues to support the state’s oncology infrastructure. In May 2026, the institute approved more than $103 million in 69 new cancer research and innovation grants, including funding aimed at expanding rural clinical trials, supporting core facilities and training the next generation of Texas scientists.
Schmitt pointed to CPRIT as one of the factors helping Texas attract life sciences companies and talent. He said the state’s investment in cancer research, combined with a business-friendly environment and major oncology institutions such as MD Anderson, has helped create the critical mass needed for biotech growth.
“Texas, I think, is putting a lot of effort and a lot of investment into growing their life sciences community through things like CPRIT,” Schmitt said. “It’s that investment into the life science industry that’s really attracting a lot of people.”
While established hubs such as Boston, San Diego, and the San Francisco Bay Area remain dominant forces in biotech, emerging regions like Texas are building their own strengths around cancer research, clinical networks, academic medicine and company formation. For Actuate, the Texas ecosystem offers a base of operations while the company continues to draw on scientific partnerships and clinical development capabilities across the US and internationally.
“As long as CPRIT is big into biotech and oncology, there is the Texas Oncology Group and MD Anderson, which together lend to a substantial critical mass that can attract, spin out and support biotech development and innovation.”
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