(Reuters) – Summit Therapeutics shares surged 37% in premarket trading on Monday after a study in China showed some lung cancer patients on the company’s experimental drug had better survival rates than those on Merck’s blockbuster therapy Keytruda.
The U.S. firm said on Sunday its drug showed patients lived a median of more than 11 months without the disease progressing, a statistically significant improvement over Merck’s Keytruda, the world’s biggest selling drug.
The late-stage study, conducted by its partner Akeso, adds further details from its initial results announced in May. Since that time, Summit’s stock price has more than quadrupled, bringing its market value to $8.61 billion.
Summit shares rose 37% to $16.66, while Merck’s shares were down 4.3% before the bell.
Analysts, however, downplayed concerns around Keytruda facing a challenge from Summit’s drug anytime soon.
Summit’s therapy still remains years away from the market with a global late-stage trial being initiated in 2025, said J.P. Morgan analyst Chris Schott. He added that the data does not meaningfully alter the view on Keytruda, which is due to go off-patent in coming years.
The study of nearly 400 patients showed Summit’s therapy had a median of 11.14 months of progression-free survival – a measurement of how long a patient lives with a disease without it worsening – compared to 5.82 months for Keytruda.
The monotherapy also reduced the risk of disease progression by 49% as a first-line treatment for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer, a disease in which malignant cancer cells form in the lung tissue.
The therapy is an antibody designed to block a protein called PD-1, which helps the body’s immune system to fend off cancer. Keytruda also targets the same protein.
(Reporting by Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo)
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