Summit Therapeutics touts a rare triumph over Keytruda in lung cancer from a China-only Phase 3 study
Hours before America’s biggest cancer conference starts in Chicago, a small biotech may have stolen the show, touting late-stage results in a Thursday afternoon press release that added over $5 billion to its market capitalization — with one major caveat. Summit Therapeutics said its experimental cancer drug beat Merck’s flagship immunotherapy Keytruda in a head-to-head Phase 3 study of non-small cell lung cancer patients in China. The Miami-based biotech said it was the first time a cancer drug has pulled off the feat of toppling Keytruda in this type of cancer. The readout triggered a multibillion-dollar stock swing, with Summit $SMMT closing up 272% on Thursday and commanding a $7.7 billion market capitalization. Merck saw its shares $MRK fall just over 1%. For all the market excitement, the results come from an interim analysis described in a press release without disclosing specific clinical results. Summit said the full dataset will be presented later this year at a medical confe...