Keytruda challenger takes center stage at ASCO 2021

This year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is a chance for Shanghai’s Junshi Biosciences (HKEX: 1877) to shine.

Together with Californian biosimilars company Coherus BioSciences (Nasdaq: CHRS), Junshi has been developing a novel checkpoint blocker, toripalimab, which could represent a challenge to established immuno-oncology options, notably Merck & Co’s (NYSE: MRK) Keytruda (pembrolizumab).

Marketed as Tuoyi, the treatment became the first domestic anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody approved for marketing in China, after a 2018 nod for the second-line treatment of unresectable or metastatic melanoma.