Featured Story | By Amirah Al Idrus After releasing dribs and drabs about its closely watched KRAS inhibitor, Amgen is pulling the curtain on full data. The treatment, known as sotorasib or AMG 510, curbed tumor growth in 88% of patients with non-small cell lung cancer, shrinking tumors in one-third of patients. read more |
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Top Stories By Tracy Staton Bristol-Myers Squibb already has one Opdivo combo approved in kidney cancer, but it’s going for another—and new trial data presented Saturday could be just the ticket, not only for winning an FDA approval, but for stacking up against its immuno-oncology rivals. read more By Angus Liu Ibrance has been leading the CDK4/6 inhibitor race thanks to its first-to-market status. But Eli Lilly’s Verzenio has now shown it can go where the Pfizer breast cancer drug previously couldn’t, in a trial win that one influential oncologist said will “change practice.” read more By Angus Liu Two sets of new data presented at ESMO around Immunomedics’ antibody-drug conjugate Trodelvy offer a glimpse into why Gilead paid $21 billion for the biotech. But though the triple-negative breast cancer showing looks like a home run, the bladder cancer results may put the med at a disadvantage as competition heats up. read more By Carly Helfand Pfizer’s Lorbrena didn’t just top predecessor Xalkori in a recent head-to-head trial in previously untreated, ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer. Lorbrena obliterated it. The third-generation ALK inhibitor, posted a 72% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death compared with the elder med. read more By Carly Helfand Once EGFR-mutated lung cancer spreads to the brain, a patient’s prognosis dramatically worsens. And that’s what AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso is trying to prevent in postsurgery patients. Turns out, the drug can do it pretty well, according to a CNS analysis of the phase 3 Adaura trial. read more By Amirah Al Idrus J&J's EGFR-fighting combo stopped tumor growth in 60% of patients whose lung cancer got worse after taking AstraZeneca's Tagrisso, shrinking tumors in 36% of them. It looked even better in a small group of newly diagnosed, never-treated patients, shrinking tumors in all 20 of them. read more By Angus Liu Roche’s Tecentriq is the first PD-1/L1 agent to win an approval in triple-negative breast cancer. But trials with seemingly contradictory results put its potential role in the hard-to-treat disease into question, especially as Merck & Co. makes inroads into the same field with formidable Keytruda. read more By Carly Helfand Last year at the European Society for Medical Oncology annual meeting, AstraZeneca and Merck showed Lynparza could beat two top rivals at fending off prostate cancer progression. This year, they’re showing it can help patients live longer, too. read more By Nick Paul Taylor Roche has shared phase 3 data on the drug that enhanced the efficacy of Johnson & Johnson’s Zytiga in a subset of prostate cancer patients earlier this year. The trial squeezed under the bar for statistical significance by improving on the median progression-free survival (PFS) of Zytiga by two months. read more By Arlene Weintraub In a trial in HR-positive/HER2-negative breast cancer, combining Novartis' Piqray with AstraZeneca’s Faslodex boosted overall survival by eight months over Faslodex alone. But for patients with lung or liver metastases, overall survival improved by more than 14 months, a "very clinically meaningful” result, one Novartis exec said. read more By Carly Helfand AstraZeneca may have recorded a double miss in a recent phase 3 study testing solo Imfinzi and an Imfinzi combo in newly diagnosed metastatic bladder cancer. But that doesn’t mean the results didn’t affirm the company’s broader strategy. read more By Nick Paul Taylor Novartis has shared data from the failed phase 3 melanoma trial of its anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor spartalizumab. The readout showed adding spartalizumab to Tafinlar and Mekinist achieved similar results to an earlier assessment of a similar combination but on this occasion the difference fell short of statistical significance. read more By Carly Helfand Merck’s Keynote-361 study in newly diagnosed metastatic bladder cancer asked a key question: Could adding Keytruda to chemo improve on chemo, the standard of care? The answer was no. But digging into the data, Merck found stats that suggest Keytruda did make some difference for patients. read more By Carly Helfand Merck & Co. already has an approval for Keytruda in tandem with Lenvima—a drug it shares with Eisai—in endometrial cancer. But the partners are trying to take the combo into additional cancers, and new data provide a glimpse of where it might go next. read more |
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