Bris­tol-My­ers craters af­ter block­buster check­point drug Op­di­vo fails key lung can­cer study

Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb an­nounced this morn­ing that Op­di­vo has flopped in a late-stage study on non-small cell lung can­cer, pre­sent­ing a stun­ning set­back for the star ther­a­py. Its shares $BMY im­me­di­ate­ly plunged 18%, wip­ing out bil­lions in mar­ket val­ue, while ri­val Mer­ck $MRK—a run­ner-up in the check­point mar­ket—saw its shares soar 10%.

Re­searchers had re­cruit­ed a broad pop­u­la­tion of 541 pre­vi­ous­ly un­treat­ed first line pa­tients whose tu­mors ex­pressed PD-L1 at ≥ 5%, a key bio­mark­er used to iden­ti­fy pa­tients most like­ly to re­spond. The Op­di­vo arm was com­pared to a group who re­ceived their physi­cian’s choice of al­ter­na­tive ther­a­pies. But this time, in the first ma­jor re­ver­sal for Bris­tol-My­ers, the drug failed to de­liv­er a sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment in pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival.

Endpoints News

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

Consultant

Recon Strategy

Boston, MA, USA