Re­gen­eron, Sanofi make their case for an­oth­er PD-1 drug — and they’re not set­tling for sixth place

CHICA­GO — The two top im­muno-on­col­o­gy in­ves­ti­ga­tors for Re­gen­eron $REGN and Sanofi, Is­rael ‘Izzy’ Lowy and Jo Lager, came to Chica­go to of­fer a very promis­ing snap­shot of the ear­ly da­ta they’ve reaped from a study of their PD-1 drug REGN2810 for cu­ta­neous squa­mous cell car­ci­no­ma — the sec­ond dead­liest form of skin can­cer be­hind melanoma.

Like No­var­tis or In­cyte or some of the oth­er com­pa­nies work­ing on PD-(L)1 ther­a­pies in the large sec­ond wave form­ing in the pipeline fol­low­ing the first 5 that have been ap­proved, these two ma­jor league play­ers see this as a key build­ing block for the com­bos they want to de­vel­op. But it would be a mis­take, they say, to sim­ply write this one off as the lat­est check­point of this stripe look­ing to line up for the mar­ket.

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