Look back at pharma news to Oct 14

US pharma major Bristol-Myers Squibb saw its shares fall nearly 10% to $50.04 last Monday to a near two year low, on the news that its best-selling cancer immunotherapy drug Opdivo had failed to beat placebo in a  head to head trial, the results of which were presented in Denmark over the weekend at the ESMO 2016 Congress.

Commenting on the news, EP Vantage, the editorial arm of the Evaluate group, said rarely have scientific data presentations been so keenly anticipated than the disclosures on two Phase III trials of checkpoint inhibitors in first-line non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that were delivered at ESMO. Those presentations were for the Keynote-024 study of Merck’s Keytruda and Checkmate 026 trial of Opdivo.

The first was known to be positive, the second negative, as top-line results were reported in June and August this year. At the time, the unexpected divergence in outcome for what were then considered two similar agents led to stock market movements for those companies that were measured in tens of billions of dollars.