ASCO 2024 preview – Astra’s plenary double

In 2023 AstraZeneca’s head of oncology R&D, Susan Galbraith, celebrated the fifth year in a row that her company had featured at ASCO’s plenary session. This year Astra will go one better – not only making the plenary podium again, but doing so twice.

Yesterday’s release of the abstract titles from the conference reveals that its plenary will feature the Adriatic study of Imfinzi in SCLC, and the Laura trial of Tagrisso in stage III NSCLC maintenance, among its five prestigious presentations. Other late-breakers from the meeting, which begins in May, will include Blenrep’s surprise success in Dreamm-8, and Krazati’s confirmatory Krystal-12 trial.

Earlier this month Bristol Myers Squibb said Krystal-12, in second-line KRAS G12C-mutated NSCLC, had shown a “statistically significant and clinically meaningful benefit” on PFS versus chemo, and the data are key at a time when Amgen’s confirmatory Codebreak-200 trial of Lumakras has been set back. 

Other recently toplined datasets that have scored ASCO late-breakers include Adcetris’s Echelon-3, an early surprise for Pfizer after its $43bn Seagen takeover, and Gilead’s Evoke-01 study of Trodelvy. The latter will be scrutinised because – despite its failure – a subgroup benefit has been talked up as backing a regulatory filing.

The full ASCO abstract texts will go live on 23 May, except for late-breakers, which will remain under wraps until the morning of the day on which they’re being presented.

Regular abstracts

Away from the plenary and late-breakers, numerous regular ASCO presentations will also be watched.

Perhaps the most intriguing of these concerns a phase 1 trial of Johnson & Johnson’s JNJ-69086420, an actinium-225 labelled MAb targeting KLK2 for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Not only is this target (KLK2 stands for human kallikrein 2) virtually unique to J&J, the group has two other clinical projects against it: the Car-T therapy JNJ-75229414 and the T-cell engager JNJ-78278343.

Just as important as what has been selected for ASCO is what hasn’t. A major catalyst for the CD47 player ALX Oncology are full data from evorpacept’s surprisingly positive Aspen-06 trial in HER2-positive gastric cancer, but this doesn’t appear to be among the ASCO titles revealed yesterday.

And neither do the phase 1 multiple myeloma study of Arcellx’s Gilead-partnered anito-cel, which analysts were hoping to be updated after data presented at ASH, or initial data on Mersana’s anti-B7-H4 ADC XMT-1660. The latter are still expected mid-year, but ASCO won’t be the venue.

Selected ASCO 2024 presentations to watch

Source: ASCO.

The ASCO annual meeting takes place in Chicago on 31 May to 4 June.