Why Summit Therapeutics Rocketed Double-Digits Today

Shares of lung cancer biotech Summit Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SMMT) rocketed 14.7% on Wednesday as of 1:45 p.m. ET.

The markets were broadly up today on a potential easing of trade tensions with China. That should be a positive for Summit, as its main partner for its current lung cancer drug trials is Chinese biotech Akeso (OTC: AKES.F).

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But the real reason for the market-beating performance today was more good news regarding a phase III trial for Summit's breakthrough drug, ivonescimab.

HARMONi-6: Ivonescimab delivers a "meaningful benefit"

Summit disclosed some preliminary results of its HARMONi-6 trial, conducted in partnership with Akeso. In the trial, Summit's antibody drug ivonescimab was administered along with platinum-based chemotherapy against the current standard of care, tislelizumab, which is made by BeiGene (NASDAQ: BGNE), in patients with locally advanced or metastatic squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The trial showed ivonescimab delivered a "statistically significant improvement" in patients meeting the primary endpoint, which was progression-free survival, for patients with both positive and negative PD-L1 tumors.The press release said the full data set would be disclosed in a presentation later this year.

Overtaking Keytruda and now Tislelizumab

The positive trial comes on top of last year's groundbreaking HARMONi-2 trial in which ivonescimab topped Keytruda in a study where both drugs were administered as a monotherapy for patients with NSCLC.

The consistent outperformance in multiple forms of administration against multiple existing standards of care is certainly very bullish for Summit, whose stock is nearly all the way back to an all-time high first touched last September, just after the HARMONi-2 trial data came in.

All in all, ivonescimab seems well on its way to becoming a blockbuster drug for lung cancer, displacing the existing standards of care along with it. So, it's perhaps no wonder that BeiGene's stock was actually down a bit today; even the broader markets staged a big rally.

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Billy Duberstein and/or his clients have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Summit Therapeutics. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.