RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of R115777 in treating patients who have locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer.

OBJECTIVES: I. Determine the six month survival rate in patients with advanced adenocarcinoma of the pancreas treated with R115777. II. Determine the time to treatment failure and confirmed response in this patient population treated with this regimen. III. Evaluate the frequency and severity of toxicities associated with this treatment regimen in these patients. OUTLINE: Patients receive oral R115777 twice daily on days 1-21. Treatment repeats every 28 days in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients are followed every 6 months for 2 years and then annually thereafter. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 21-50 patients will be accrued for this study.