Experimental cancer drugs amivantamab and daraxonrasib show strong trial outcomes

Amivantamab, a bispecific antibody developed by Johnson & Johnson, produced significant tumor shrinkage in an international trial of 102 patients with head and neck cancer, reducing or eradicating tumours in 43 patients and fully clearing tumours in 15. The results were presented at the ASCO annual meeting in Chicago. Professor Kevin Harrington of the Institute of Cancer Research in London said, “These are unprecedentedly strong responses in patients whose disease has become resistant to both chemotherapy and immunotherapy.”

In a separate large trial, the experimental KRAS inhibitor daraxonrasib more than doubled median overall survival for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, extending it to 13.2 months versus 6.7 months with standard chemotherapy. Dr. Zev Wainberg of UCLA described the drug as “a very big step forward.” The findings were also unveiled at the ASCO conference and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, with the FDA indicating an accelerated review pathway.

Both studies suggest potential new treatment options for cancers that have few effective therapies, and they involve participants from multiple countries.