NSCLC disrupted

This year’s ASCO made clear that PD-1 inhibitors have supplanted chemotherapy as standard of care in first-line metastatic NSCLC. The unanticipated consequence is the knock-on effects for companies with studies under way in both first- and later-line use.

At least two lessons are apparent: it will become increasingly difficult to perform later-line metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) trials in PD-1 naïve patients, and first-line studies will have to use an approved anti-PD-1 therapy as the comparator...