September has been an exciting time for investors with their fingers on the pulse of cancer drug development. In a nutshell, it looks like the world's top-selling cancer therapy could have a serious competitor.

Sales of Keytruda from Merck reached $25 billion last year thanks to its position as a standard first line of treatment for most patients newly diagnosed with the most common form of lung cancer.

Biotech investors have been buzzing with enthusiasm for Summit Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SMMT) and its lead candidate, ivonescimab. Recently announced results from a clinical trial with frontline lung cancer patients showed ivonescimab reduced their risk of disease worsening by 49% compared to Keytruda monotherapy. That's a big deal for Summit and a pair of companies that are also developing candidates similar to ivonescimab, Instil Bio (NASDAQ: TIL) and BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX).

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Source Fool.com