(Bloomberg Gadfly) -- Victories come in multiple sizes. And Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s latest isn't quite an Eagles Super Bowl win.
Alongside solid fourth-quarter earnings on Monday, the company said early trial data showed its immune-boosting cancer drug Opdivo, in combination with its older drug Yervoy, slowed lung cancer relative to traditional chemotherapy.
While investors should be thrilled this trial so far isn't a flop like AstraZeneca PLC's similar effort, they ought to wait to pop champagne.
To start, this is exceptionally early and detail-light data. We have little information about the magnitude of the benefit of Bristol's combo, or to what degree it outperforms Opdivo on its own.
Merck & Co. Inc. has yet to reveal detailed data on its latest lung-cancer combination trial for its competing medicine Keytruda; but we at least know that it extends survival, which is the gold standard for cancer drugs. For now, we only know that Bristol's combo slowed the disease; survival data may be a long time coming. Roche Holding AG is also waiting on more survival data for a combo trial for its drug Tecentriq.
Bristol also disclosed it had changed its trial to isolate its combo's effects on a subset of patients whose tumors have an especially high number of mutations. A change this late in the game is somewhat worrisome, inviting speculation Bristol doesn't believe its medicines can succeed in a broader population. Such narrowing may increase the chances of more positive trial results, but may also limit the combo's use. And competitors' trials don't have similar focus.
In the event Bristol's combo does prove a survival benefit, there may be a cost and side-effect disadvantage relative to Merck. The category of medicines to which Opdivo belongs already can have serious side effects, which can be heightened by adding another medicine on top of them.
Merck chose to combine its drug Keytruda with an older chemotherapy instead of another immune-boosting drug. Merck's approach has resulted in a fairly mild side-effect profile, and the FDA approved its combo last May.
Wall Street analysts expect Keytruda to outsell Opdivo for the first time this year and to build a strong lead over the next few years. Without a lot of additional strong data from Opdivo, it shouldn't lose its lead any time soon.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Max Nisen is a Bloomberg Gadfly columnist covering biotech, pharma and health care. He previously wrote about management and corporate strategy for Quartz and Business Insider.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net.
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