News release

From: The Lancet

The Lancet: New lung cancer medication combination improves patient survival by 15%, finds phase 3 trial

Adding the newly developed monoclonal antibody ivonescimab to chemotherapy leads to patients with advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer living an average of 15% longer than a current standard treatment, finds a phase 3 clinical trial published in The Lancet.

Non-small cell lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, with squamous non-small cell lung cancers. Squamous non-small cell lung cancers are particularly hard to treat, and many patients are diagnosed after the disease has already spread: chances of long-term survival remain poor despite advances in immunotherapy.

This trial included over 500 patients in China with previously untreated advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer and investigated whether a new type of immunotherapy drug - ivonescimab- could outperform existing standard treatments. Ivonescimab is a bispecific antibody that simultaneously hits two different targets with the potential of creating a stronger anti-tumor effect while keeping toxicity manageable.

Patients who received ivonescimab plus chemotherapy lived an average of 28 months, compared with 24 months for patients who received the standard treatment of tislelizumab plus chemotherapy, an increase of roughly 15%. Serious treatment-related side effects were more common with ivonescimab (69% of patients) than the standard treatment arm (59% of patients), however rates of stopping the treatment due to side effects were similar across the two groups at roughly 5%.

The researchers say this treatment could provide a new medication option for patients with a very challenging-to-treat form of lung cancer. It remains important to see whether the overall benefit will be sustained over time, but these results also open up a new direction for the development of treatments this field.