June 5 ASCO Quick Takes: AZ’s Tagrisso impresses with OS data

At the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting on Sunday, AstraZeneca plc (LSE:AZN; NASDAQ:AZN) presented overall survival data from the Phase III ADAURA study of Tagrisso osimertinib showing that in a targeted group of non-small cell lung cancer patients with EGFR mutations who had undergone resection, the therapy led to a mortality risk reduction of 51% compared with placebo, both in the primary analysis population with stage II-IIIA disease and the overall population with stage IB-IIIA. Median OS was not reached in either group. In the overall population, 88% of patients were still alive five years after treatment.

Shares of Replimune Group Inc. (NASDAQ:REPL) rose 19% to $22.60 following the company's ASCO presentation of updated data from its registration-directed Phase I/II IGNYTE trial combining vusolimogene oderparepvec (RP1), an engineered herpesvirus expressing the fusogenic protein GALV-GP R- and the cytokine GM-CSF, with anti-PD1 mAb Opdivo nivolumab in 91 melanoma patients who had previously progressed on anti-PD1 therapy. The combination had an ORR of 37.4% with a median follow-up of 75.9 weeks, and there was no progression in responding patients since Replimune’s readout in Dec. 2022, after which the company raised a $225 million follow-on. Replimune also reported Phase I data for RP2, which adds an encoded anti-CTLA-4 antibody-like molecule to the RP1 construct, showing responses in four of 14 uveal melanoma patients including those with metastatic tumors in the liver and bone...