SAN DIEGO — For years, Merck’s drug Keytruda has dominated most cancers immunotherapy, racking up dozens of approvals, extending the lives of sufferers, and bringing in billions of {dollars} to the pharma big. However detailed knowledge introduced by Summit Therapeutics on Sunday demonstrated that the corporate’s experimental remedy has carried out what no different has carried out earlier than: beat Keytruda in a head-to-head late-stage trial in lung most cancers.
The Summit drug, an antibody referred to as ivonescimab, diminished the chance of tumor development by 49% in comparison with Keytruda, in line with knowledge launched right here on the World Convention on Lung Most cancers. On the median, sufferers handled with ivonescimab went 11.1 months earlier than their tumors started to develop once more in comparison with 5.8 months for sufferers on Keytruda.
The Part 3 examine, referred to as HARMONi-2, was carried out by Akeso, a Chinese language firm that invented ivonescimab and licensed it to Summit. Researchers enrolled practically 400 sufferers with beforehand untreated, superior non-small cell lung most cancers.