Daily briefings
Editor’s Briefing: October 23, 2026
In Short. Moderna and Merck released full results showing their personalized melanoma vaccine cut the risk of relapse or death by 42%. Zai Lab reported early lung cancer data, and Lycia Therapeutics priced a $317.5m share listing.
Moderna and Merck publish their melanoma vaccine results
MELANOMA is a skin cancer that often returns after surgery. Moderna and Merck are testing intismeran autogene, an mRNA vaccine built for each patient from mutated proteins found in that patient’s tumor. On Thursday at 2:59pm the companies released detailed results from INTerpath-001, a late-stage trial that compared the vaccine plus Keytruda, Merck’s immune drug, with Keytruda alone in people whose melanoma had been removed (Cancer Network). Patients received nine doses of the vaccine, starting 13 weeks after surgery. After a median follow-up of 24.6 months, the combination cut the risk of relapse or death by 42%. At two years, 82.2% of the 757 patients on the combination had no return of cancer, against 70.0% of the 380 on Keytruda alone. The combination also cut the risk of the cancer spreading to distant organs, or of death, by 38%. Survival data are not yet mature. Reuters reported that the results had leaked on an oncology website earlier on Thursday (Reuters). “This is highly statistically significant. It is not by chance,” said Hussein Tawbi, a trial investigator at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The full data will be presented on Saturday at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) meeting in Madrid.
Zai Lab reports early data in small cell lung cancer
Small cell lung cancer is a fast-growing form of lung cancer, and in its extensive stage it has spread beyond one lung. Zai Lab, a company based in Shanghai and Cambridge, Massachusetts, is testing zocilurtatug pelitecan, or zoci, an antibody-drug conjugate (an antibody that carries a toxic drug to cells bearing a chosen protein). On Friday morning it reported first data from an early trial of zoci with atezolizumab, an immune drug, as a first treatment, to be presented at ESMO (Zai Lab release). At the dose chosen for the next trial, tumors shrank in 27 of 33 patients, or 81.8%, and an estimated 81.9% had no cancer growth at six months. Serious side effects linked to zoci occurred in three of the 33. The trial had no comparison group, and Zai Lab expects to begin a larger randomized trial by the end of 2026.
Lycia Therapeutics prices its share listing
Lycia Therapeutics, based in South San Francisco, develops drugs that remove harmful proteins from outside cells by sending them to the cell’s waste system, the lysosome. Its work is based on research by Carolyn Bertozzi, a Nobel laureate at Stanford University. On Thursday evening it priced its initial public offering, its first sale of shares to the public, at 17,640,000 shares for $18.00 each (Lycia release). That brings in about $317.5m before fees, and the company increased the size of the offering from its original plan. Its lead drugs are LCA-0061, which removes IgE, the antibody behind food allergy, and LCA-0321, which targets the antibodies that cause Graves’ disease, a thyroid disorder. Trading on Nasdaq is expected to begin on October 23rd, and the sale is expected to close on October 26th.
AbbVie’s skin disease drug meets its main goal
Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic skin disease that causes painful lumps and abscesses. On Thursday morning AbbVie reported that lutikizumab, an antibody that blocks two forms of the inflammatory signal interleukin-1, met the main goal of INTREPID, a late-stage trial (AbbVie release). After 16 weeks, about three in ten patients on the drug had at least a 75% fall in their count of lumps and abscesses, against about one in four on placebo. Rates of side effects were similar in both groups. In an earlier mid-stage trial, up to nearly half of patients on lutikizumab reached that level, against fewer than one in five on placebo (Fierce Biotech). AbbVie expects results from a 36-week extension of the trial in 2027 and plans to file for approval in the second half of that year.
What to watch
The melanoma vaccine results are due to be presented at ESMO on Saturday, October 24th, and the companies say they are engaging with regulators. Zai Lab holds a call on its zoci data at 8:00am on Friday.