There is still a month to go before abstracts for the European Society of Medical Oncology’s annual meeting are revealed, but it looks like late-breakers featuring Keytruda and Opdivo in lung cancer will give biopharma investors the most to look forward to.
And there is more, with Pfizer’s (NYSE:PFE) recent $14bn takeout of Medivation (NASDAQ:MDVN)bringing into play Esmo presentations on Tesaro (NASDAQ:TSRO) and Clovis’ (NASDAQ:CLVS) rival Parp inhibitors. The presentation titles are now available, showing how this, plus data on novel immuno-oncology combinations, could kickstart biotech after the summer lull (see table below).
Investors enjoying a relaxing holiday already had one jolt with the shock failure of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (NYSE:BMY) Opdivo in first-line lung cancer (Bristol swings for the fences and strikes out, August 5, 2016). Now they will look to Esmo, where full data from this trial, Checkmate-026, could provide essential information about Opdivo’s potential in patients expressing higher levels of PD-L1.
