Biotechnology firm Immuneering Corp. (IMRX.US) saw its shares plummet approximately 21% in Wednesday's after-hours trading following the release of Phase 2a clinical trial results for atebimetinib as a first-line treatment for pancreatic cancer. The company reported a 12-month overall survival rate of 64% for patients treated with atebimetinib in combination with a modified version of gemcitabine/albumin-bound paclitaxel. It was noted that the current standard of care has a benchmark 12-month overall survival rate of 35%. Furthermore, the combination therapy demonstrated a 12-month overall response rate of 39%, compared to 23% for the standard therapy. The median progression-free survival was 8.5 months, outperforming the standard therapy's 5.5 months. Immuneering specifically highlighted that only two Grade 3 adverse events were observed in more than 10% of patients: neutropenia and anemia. Despite the positive data for atebimetinib, investors may be comparing it to other first-line pancreatic cancer therapies in development, such as Verastem's avutometinib combined with defactinib and Revolution Medicines' daraxonarasib. Notably, the avutometinib combination therapy previously reported an overall response rate as high as 83%, while daraxonarasib reported 55%. However, the median follow-up times for the results announced by Verastem and Revolution Medicines were relatively shorter.
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