Unlabelled - The study was aimed at the identification of a potential anti-cancer compound from the leaf extract of , against pancreatic cancer cells (PANC-1). Out of different extracts tested, methanolic extract showed significant cytotoxicity at an IC of 289.5 ± 0.03 µg/mL after 24 h (MTT assay). The safety of the extract was ascertained using normal pancreatic cells (hTERT-HPNE). Methanolic extract was able to induce apoptosis in 28.9 ± 0.01% of PANC-1 cells as determined by flow cytometry. RT-PCR analysis of PANC-1 cells also recorded an increase in the mRNA expression of pro-apoptotic genes i.e., (12.82 folds), (10 folds) and (8.74 folds) after treatment. Expression of other pro-apoptotic genes such as and was also upregulated by 4.04 and 4.01 folds, respectively. However, the mRNA expression of anti-apoptotic genes, , and was found to be downregulated. The bioactive extract was then fractionated on preparative silica gel plates into 24 bands. Out of these, band fraction 9 exhibited significant cytotoxicity (IC 219 ± 0.04 µg/mL) on the PANC-1 cells. The mass spectral (HPLC-MS) and FTIR analysis of the fraction indicated the bioactive compound to be a derivative of Diosgenin, which can be a possible candidate for cancer therapeutics in future. Supplementary information - The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13205-022-03155-w.