Sugemalimab Treatment for Stage 4 NSCLC Prolongs Progression-Free-Survival

Pharmaceutical company EQRx announced updated data from partner CStone Pharmaceuticals’ Phase 3 GEMSTONE-302, a placebo-controlled trial of the anti-PD-L1 antibody sugemalimab in combination with chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for patients with stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

“These updated stage 4 data combined with previous positive phase 3 results in stage 3 NSCLC continue to underscore the potential of sugemalimab to treat a broad range of NSCLC patient populations and lend credence to our mission of developing and delivering high-quality medicines at radically lower prices so patients can access the treatments that they need,” Vincent Miller, MD, physician-in-chief at EQRx, said in a statement. “We look forward to more mature OS data from GEMSTONE-302, as well as continued regulatory discussions for sugemalimab in multiple countries.”

Sugemalimab is an investigational monoclonal antibody targeting programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1).

Positive results were previously reported showing that the sugemalimab treatment with chemotherapy prolonged the progression-free-survival (PFS) and was well tolerated compared with chemotherapy treatment and a placebo.

The new results show that the sugemalimab treatment with chemotherapy continued to have longer PFS rates at 9 months, with 4.9 months for just chemotherapy. The preliminary median of the overall survival rate was 22.8 months for sugemalimab and chemotherapy compared with 17.7 months for just chemotherapy.

There were no new safety concerns observed in the follow-up, and clinical benefits across all subgroups, including different pathological subtypes and PD-L1 expression levels, were observed.

The updated results were presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 2021 World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Reference

EQRx announces presentation of updated data from pivotal phase 3 study of anti-pd=l1 antibody sugemalimab in combination with chemotherapy as first-line treatment for state IV NSCLC. Businesswire. News release. September 13, 2021. Accessed September 14, 2021. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210913005907/en