Summit Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SMMT) is a Miami-based biopharmaceutical company that is focused on discovery, development, and the commercialization of patient, physician, caregiver, and societal friendly medicinal therapies in the United States and the United Kingdom. Shares of this biotech stock have surged 147% week-over-week as of close on Thursday, May 30, 2024. The stock has now climbed 313% in the year-to-date period.
The company’s stock started to gain major momentum after it publicly stated that its experimental cancer drug outperformed Merck & Co.’s blockbuster Keytruda in a late-stage clinical trial. In the trial, Keytruda was compared to the Summit drug ivonescimab. The latter showed “a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival across patient subgroups, including those with high and low PD-L1 expression”. In the press release, Summit went on to say that it does not know of any previous phase 3 trials in non-small cell lung cancer that demonstrated a statistically significant improvement over Keytruda in a head-to-head comparison.
Going forward, Summit is confident that the results are “the beginning of a paradigm change for treatment options for patients living with cancer,” said Robert Duggan, Summit chairman and CEO.
Lung cancer continues to be the leading cause of cancer death sin the United States according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Moreover, approximately 80-85% of lung cancers are non-small cell lung cancer. The development of ivonescimab has the potential to be a true game-changer for Summit and for lung cancer patients.
