With all eyes on Chi­nese-on­ly on­col­o­gy da­ta, Co­herus and Jun­shi un­cork win for PD-1 drug in esophageal can­cer

Af­ter the FDA’s re­cent shel­lack­ing of Eli Lil­ly and In­novent’s im­mune check­point drug sin­til­imab, all eyes are on the next drug­mak­ers up for agency re­view with Chi­nese-on­ly clin­i­cal da­ta. A pair of those com­pa­nies is now un­veil­ing fuller late-stage da­ta to sup­port their own PD-1 — but will the FDA ever buy it?

A com­bi­na­tion of Co­herus and Jun­shi’s PD-1 drug tori­pal­imab and chemother­a­py cut the risk of death by 22.3% over place­bo af­ter one year in pa­tients with ad­vanced esophageal squa­mous cell car­ci­no­ma, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the Phase III JUPITER-06 study pub­lished Fri­day in Can­cer Cell. The an­nounce­ment fol­lows an in­ter­im analy­sis from De­cem­ber when the pair tout­ed the drug im­proved sur­vival on a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant mea­sure over place­bo.

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