Imdelltra-Imfinzi Combo Cuts Lung Cancer Death Risk 58% in Phase 3
AMGN sits 53% above its 52-week low of $288.
Summary
Full 563-patient Phase 3 data show Amgen's Imdelltra plus AstraZeneca's Imfinzi cut the risk of death by 58% versus Imfinzi alone in extensive-stage small cell lung cancer, with median survival of 21.1 months against 12.7 months. Nearly 80% of patients on the combination were alive at one year versus 53% on Imfinzi alone. The results, presented at ESMO in Madrid and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, support moving Imdelltra into earlier lines of treatment, where the current label covers only patients whose disease worsened after chemotherapy. The commercial stakes are meaningful: Imdelltra lists at about $30,000 per cycle, or over $390,000 a year, and analysts estimate sales above $2.5 billion by 2030. Safety is the caveat — serious side effects hit 20.9% of combination patients versus 10.8% on Imfinzi alone, and cytokine release syndrome occurred in 49.6% of Imdelltra recipients, though only one case was serious and there were no CRS-related deaths. This is a label-expansion opportunity for a drug still early in its ramp, and it lands as Amgen works to offset the Tavneos regulatory setback and the unresolved $10.7B IRS dispute.
At the time of this announcement, AMGN was trading at $439.26 on NASDAQ in the Life Sciences sector, with a market capitalization of approximately $237.5B. The 52-week trading range was $288.00 to $450.98. This news item was assessed with positive market sentiment and an importance score of 8 out of 10. Source: Reuters.