Seeking Alpha • Aug 28
EQRx: Saving American Lives, Made Possible By Low Cost Chinese Drugs
Summary
EQRx's goal is to make drugs affordable; its strategy - get those drugs cheap from China.
I don't see an innovation here, and that bothers me.
The company has huge cash, which is a positive.
EQRx (EQRX) is a late-stage developer of medicines for oncology and immune-inflammatory diseases in the USA. Its stated business goal is to provide low-cost alternatives to existing life-saving but expensive medicines. In order to do this, the company's current strategy seems to be to acquire and then bring to the US medicines already approved in China.
The company's phase 3 programs include:
Aumolertinib, an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor for the treatment of patients with EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC);
Sugemalimab, an anti-programmed death-ligand 1 antibody for the treatment of Stage III and Stage IV NSCLC.
Nofazinlimab or EQ176, an anti-programmed death-1 antibody that is in Phase III trials for the treatment of patients with primary liver cancer
Lerociclib, a small molecule cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 inhibitor, which is in Phase II clinical trials in patients with metastatic breast cancer.
Aumolertinib is the lead program. It recently posted positive data at ASCO:
In a Chinese phase III trial (AENEAS) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lu et al found that aumolertinib, a third-generation EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor approved in China, significantly improved progression-free survival vs gefitinib in the first-line treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with an EGFR exon 19 deletion or L858R mutation.
Aumolertinib is a China-approved oral Tyrosine Kinase inhibitor or TKI which works similarly to AstraZeneca's (AZN) Tagrisso or Osimertinib. Tagrisso is the current standard of care in this genetic variant of NSCLC, and it has shown superb results compared to gefitinib, an earlier generation TKI. However, Aumolertinib can be used in certain situations:
…in countries where osimertinib may be unavailable or unaffordable. As a potential cost-disruptor, it may introduce tangible price competition and thereby decrease the overall cost of health care.
While Aumolertinib has not been directly compared to osimertinib, both have been compared to gefitinib. Data is as follows; OS data for aumolertinib is not mature at the time of writing, so only mPFS is provided:
Aumolertinib vs gefitinib - median progression-free survival 19.3 months v 9.9 months.
Osimertinib vs gefitinib - median progression-free survival 18.9 months vs. 10.2 months.
Clearly, aumolertinib compares very well to osimertinib. A phase 3b "US-led" trial is ongoing. An MAA has been applied for, and accepted in Europe.
Sugemalimab is the second program. This is an anti-PDL1 antibody targeting later stage NSCLC. This program has the following dataset (quote from Co Presentation):
Stave IV NSCLC - Data presented at ASCO from pre-specified OS analysis, showing 25.4 months of median OS, an estimated 8.5 month improvement over placebo + chemo
Stage III NSCLC - Final PFS data presented at WCLC from final median PFS analysis, showing 10.5 months of median PFS, an estimated 4.3 month improvement over placebo
ENKTL or Extranodal natural killer (NK)/T cell lymphoma - Data presented at ASCO showing 46.2% ORR and 37.2% CR, in a traditionally difficult to treat and aggressive type of NHL