Bristol-Myers says a key trial for its lung cancer drug succeeds

Bristol-Myers Squibb on Monday said it found a new way to identify cancer patients who are treatable by immunotherapy drugs. It said non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients whose tumor cells had a high level tumor mutation burden (TMB) showed a highly statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival with a combination of its immuno-oncology drugs nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) versus chemotherapy. Companies had been classifying patients in terms of a tumor's expression of a protein called PD-L1. Better diagnostic tests could improve predictions of whether cancer patients are likely to benefit from the costly treatments. The company said it plans to release overall survival data for the nivolumab and ipilimumab combination toward the end of the year or early next year.