China’s Akeso says cancer drug beat AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi in phase 3 trial

Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Akeso announced on Wednesday that its immunotherapy drug had outperformed AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi in a head-to-head phase-three trial for biliary tract cancer.

The result represents another breakthrough for Akeso’s ivonescimab – which has already been licensed by the US firm Summit Therapeutics in a multibillion-dollar deal – as China’s biopharma industry increasingly looks to compete on the global stage.

The Chinese trial tested ivonescimab and chemotherapy against AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi (durvalumab) plus chemotherapy on a total of 682 patients with advanced biliary tract cancer – a particularly deadly form of cancer with a five-year survival rate of less than 5 per cent, according to a Nature study.

The results showed that patients taking Akeso’s novel drug lived longer than those using the AstraZeneca treatment, the company said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing released a day ahead of its interim results.

The study marks the first positive phase-three study for ivonescimab in gastrointestinal tumours, potentially opening the door for the drug to be used in a “broader range of solid tumours”, said Xia Yu, Akeso’s founder, chairwoman and CEO.

However, Akeso has yet to disclose the exact survival figures from the trial, which the Zhongshan-headquartered company is expected to present at an coming conference.