ArriVent BioPharma Shares Plunge After Lung Cancer Trial Failure

ArriVent BioPharma announced Tuesday that its oral therapy, firmonertinib, failed to meet its primary goal in a late-stage trial for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer featuring an EGFR exon 20 insertion mutation. The drug extended median progression-free survival to 11 months, but this was not considered a meaningful improvement over the 9.5 months recorded for the chemotherapy control arm, which performed better than expected.

CEO Bing Yao described the results as disappointing, noting they were not what the company hoped for given the urgent need for more effective treatment options for these patients. Following the announcement, the company's shares fell nearly 60% in morning trading.

ArriVent is now evaluating the full dataset to determine the future of the drug's development. While firmonertinib is already approved in China for certain non-small cell lung cancer mutations, the company continues to test the therapy in a separate late-stage trial for patients with uncommon EGFR PACC mutations.