AstraZeneca Cans Late-Stage Bispecific Trial After Lung Cancer Setback

AstraZeneca has discontinued a late-stage bispecific trial involving its experimental lung cancer drug volrustomig after an independent data monitoring committee found the combination with chemotherapy was unlikely to meet its primary endpoints of progression-free survival or overall survival in patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer lacking the PD-L1 protein.

The trial, eVOLVE-Lung02, was testing volrustomig, a bispecific antibody targeting PD-1 and CTLA-4, as a first-line therapy in PD-L1-negative or PD-L1-low patients. The independent review concluded that the volrustomig regimen did not show sufficient benefit over the comparator, which in some cases included Merck’s Keytruda plus chemotherapy.

Despite the setback in lung cancer, AstraZeneca is continuing other late-stage trials of volrustomig in indications such as head and neck cancer, malignant pleural mesothelioma, cervical cancer, and other solid tumors, with safety data from the halted trial deemed consistent with known profiles and no new safety signals.