Prime Highlights
- Abdullah said GSK considers Mo-rez a priority asset and is confident the drug will reach blockbuster status based on the early trial results.
- Mo-rez helped more than 60% of patients achieve meaningful tumour shrinkage across two hard-to-treat gynaecological cancers in early trials.
Key Facts
- GSK, or GlaxoSmithKline, is a British multinational pharmaceutical company with a growing oncology division focused on developing targeted cancer treatments.
- The global market for antibody-drug conjugate treatments, the class of drugs Mo-rez belongs to, is projected to reach 31 billion US dollars by 2030.
Background
British drugmaker GSK says its experimental cancer drug Mo-rez has blockbuster potential after early trial data showed it was shrinking tumours in patients with advanced, hard-to-treat cancers. The results were presented at a medical conference in Puerto Rico.
GSK’s head of oncology research, Hesham Abdullah, told reporters the company considers Mo-rez one of its priority assets and is confident it will achieve blockbuster status. The early data measured the share of patients who achieved at least a 30% reduction in tumour size. In platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, 62% of patients met that mark, while 67% did so in endometrial cancer.
Mo-rez is an antibody-drug conjugate that targets the B7H4 protein found on gynaecological cancer cells but largely absent from healthy tissue. GSK licensed the drug from the Chinese pharmaceutical company Hansoh Pharma in 2023.
The strong data adds momentum to GSK’s fast-growing oncology division. CEO Luke Miels, who took the role at the start of this year, has signalled plans to speed up work on new medicines. Abdullah said this shift is already visible in how the company is moving its programmes forward.
GSK currently runs two late-stage trials for Mo-rez in ovarian and endometrial cancers and plans to launch three additional studies in the coming months. Analysts have not yet issued sales forecasts, given that the drug is still in early trials. The global market for antibody-drug conjugate treatments is projected to reach 31 billion US dollars by 2030.
