Tak­ing on Big Phar­ma ri­vals, biotech start­up un­veils first-in-hu­man da­ta on ROS1 drug

Nu­va­lent set out to show that by lever­ag­ing struc­ture-based drug de­sign and a bit of chem­istry whiz out of its Har­vard founder’s lab, it can hit well-known can­cer tar­gets in ways that no oth­ers can. On Fri­day, it of­fered the first proof in hu­mans.

The biotech’s shares soared 62.45% to $35.74 on da­ta from an ear­ly tri­al show­ing that al­most half of the 21 heav­i­ly pre­treat­ed ROS1-pos­i­tive non-small cell lung can­cer pa­tients that got its lead drug, NVL-520, saw a par­tial re­sponse — a rate of 48%.

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