(Reuters) -Summit Therapeutics’ shares fell 21% in premarket trading on Monday after the company reported mixed results from a longer-term follow up of western patients in a late-stage trial for its lung cancer drug.
The study results, reported on Sunday, showed that the drug, ivonescimab, had stronger benefit in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in China, compared to patients in North America and Europe.
Last year, Summit shares hit a record high after the company and its partner Akeso reported results from a trial conducted in China, which showed patients who took ivonescimab had better survival rates than those on Merck’s blockbuster Keytruda.
However, the company reported in May global data where the drug showed an overall survival benefit trend but failed to reach statistical significance, leading to a 30% drop in its shares.
Summit’s first global test failed to validate the promising signals observed with ivonescimab in trials conducted in China, Leerink analyst Daina Graybosch said in a note dated September 7.
The drug developer’s stock is trading -37.29 times its forward 12-month earnings estimates, compared with -11.63 and -23.31 respectively for rivals CRISPR Therapeutics and BioNTech.
(Reporting by Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
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