A husband and wife research team in Sydney has developed a drug that is almost ready to be tested on people inflicted with one of the hardest to treat cancers, pancreatic cancer.

Professors Jenny Gamble and Mathew Vadas say the drug, called CD5-2, has shown to work in animal experiments to slow tumour growth.

The drug targets the principal building blocks of blood vessels called endothelial cells.

The blood vessels in tumours are grossly abnormal and the drug works by naturally restoring the glue that binds the vessels together.

"We've shown in pre-clinical models that it actually does work, that by normalising the vascular system we can enhance the endogenous, the normal immune system to now get more cells into the tumour and they fight the tumour better," Professor Gamble, Head of the Vascular Biology Program at the Centenary Institute, said.

The aim is to use the drug in conjunction with immunotherapy.

"One of the great things is we took a tumour that was resistant to immunotherapy and we were able to convert it to being sensitive to immunotherapy," Professor Vadas, Executive Director of the Institute, said.

"This is the holy grail not only for us, but all around the world."

Toxicology and safety studies are underway, but with significantly more funding, it's hoped that the drug can be tested in humans within two years.

The death rate for pancreatic cancer has not improved in four decades and just seven percent of people diagnosed live beyond five years.

Late journalist Peter Harvey.

The disease claimed the life of Walkley Award-winning journalist and 9NEWS stalwart Peter Harvey in 2013.

"We miss him a lot and the way he died was so sudden and so violent in a way, it didn't give us a lot of time to grieve before he died so it has been tough," his daughter Claire Harvey said.

"It was a tough five months that he lived from diagnosis until death which in pancreatic (cancer) terms is quite a long time."

Ms Harvey is the ambassador of the Avner Pancreatic Cancer Foundation, which helped fund the research at the Centenary Institute.

"Breakthroughs in cancer research are so critical and it really is all about money, it's about research funding for the scientists who dedicate their lives to this kind of work," she said.