Last Week Tonight in BioPharma: Week of June 1st, 2026

Revolution Medicines presented complete Phase 3 data for daraxonrasib at ASCO 2026, showing the drug cut the risk of death by 60% and nearly doubled median overall survival to 13.2 months versus 6.7 months for chemotherapy in KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancer. The results, which received a standing ovation at the plenary session, position daraxonrasib as a potential breakthrough in the deadliest solid tumor where no effective treatments exist. Revolution Medicines is now expected to pursue a broad second-line label in pancreatic cancer, with analysts viewing the company as too large for acquisition and likely to grow into a major independent biopharma.

Last Week Tonight in BioPharma: Week of June 1st, 2026 RevMed PDAC data, IgAN opportunity, CAR-T for kidney transplant, NewLimit Series C, and much more Welcome back to Last Week Tonight in BioPharma LWTB . What a week Daraxonrasib steals the show at ASCO, Otsuka leaves room for competitors in IgAN, a potential new market opportunity for CAR-T, another big longevity company raise, and much more. All that and more below. Let’s get into it A little programming note: This edition of LWTB went out a little earlier than normal. I have a backlog of ASCO data I need to get through for some paid posts I am working on, so I wanted to get LWTB out to you sooner rather than later. Stay tuned for some ASCO deep dives if you’re a paid subscriber. If you subscribe to Big Pharma Sharma BPS for LWTB and you like what you read, consider upgrading to paid to read my best work. I recently mapped out all the Big Pharma x Big AI partnerships and dug into who is winning the early rounds in that race, how each Big AI company is positioning themselves slightly differently, and what success factors may be for these tie-ups. 📡 PRESS RELEASE DECODER What the press releases actually mean Revolution Medicines Presents the Full RASolute 302 Dataset at ASCO: Daraxonrasib Cuts Death Risk 60% in Pancreatic Cancer, the Deadliest Solid Tumor in Oncology https://ir.revmed.com/news-releases/news-release-details/revolution-medicines-presents-rasolute-302-phase-3-data-asco-2026 📅. May 31, 2026 | 🏢. Revolution Medicines $RVMD | 💊. daraxonrasib RMC-6236 | 🏷. Phase 3 Full Data Presentation ASCO 2026 Plenary Revolution Medicines presented the complete RASolute 302 Phase 3 dataset at the ASCO 2026 plenary on May 31, delivering the most detailed look yet at daraxonrasib’s survival advantage over chemotherapy in KRAS-mutant pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma PDAC . The headline numbers from the April topline release https://www.statnews.com/2026/05/31/revolution-medicines-pancreatic-cancer-drug-rasolute-302-asco/ were confirmed and expanded: median overall survival of 13.2 months versus 6.7 months for chemotherapy, with a hazard ratio of 0.40 p<0.0001 . That hazard ratio means patients on daraxonrasib had a 60% lower risk of death. n=500 total: 248 daraxonrasib, 252 chemotherapy, confirmed from ASCO plenary press release 🧠 BPS Take: The daraxonrasib data was just as good as everybody hoped: near doubling of overall survival in pancreatic cancer, where literally absolutely nothing works. I’ve lauded the Revolution Medicines team multiple times before on BPS, so I won’t recapitulate any of those comments here. I saw a lot of commentary about how there was a standing ovation in the plenary session when these data were presented. That is such a monumental and moving acknowledgment of transformational science. What’s perhaps an even better biomarker, so to speak, of the impact of these data is when people outside of biotech and pharma are prompting you to talk about it.I’ve already had several of my non-biotech friends and family bring this dataset up to me, separately. I think that’s a real signal that this is going to be a majorly transformational drug, but commercially, RVMD has a lot of public momentum on their side. As I’ve mentioned before, RVMD is, at this juncture, too big to be bought. They’re more likely to grow into the next Alnylam or even the next Vertex and become an acquirer themselves. The strategic angle that I didn’t fully appreciate until listening to interviews with the RVMD CEO was that there is potentially a much broader label than what people were once considering for this approval. The study looked at KRAS-G12D-specific patients, but also looked at patients with a much broader array of KRAS mutations, including wild-type KRAS. And notably, the broader population performed just as well as the KRAS-G12D-specific patient population. I think RVMD is going to push for a broad second-line label in PDAC post chemotherapy. They might not get any restriction as to specific mutations, or they might end up landing at just “mutant KRAS” specific patients. Over 90% of PDAC is driven by KRAS, so it is conceivable to me that taking into account that this drug has a CNPV, has already had its expanded access program green-lit, has tremendous positive news coverage, that they will get a much broader label than just mutant KRAS G12D patients. All signs point to daraxonrasib pioneering what is set to be a very large class of medicines, not just for pancreatic cancer, but likely for other mutant KRAS-driven solid tumors. The natural next question is: if RVMD is too big to buy, who else are they competing with that could be an interesting acquisition target, potentially improving on the clinical profile of daraxonrasib? Erasca ERAS 0.00%↑ https://substack.com/search/%24ERAS is a name that keeps popping up and is one to watch. Ivonescimab Posts a 34% Death Risk Reduction in Lung Cancer at ASCO https://www.statnews.com/2026/06/01/ivonescimab-summit-asco-harmonious-6-os-data/ - Stock Gets Killed After Discussant Tears It Down 📅. June 1, 2026 | 🏢. Summit Therapeutics $SMMT and Akeso 6554.HK | 💊. ivonescimab AK112 | 🏷. Phase 3 OS Data Presentation HARMONi-6, ASCO 2026 Plenary Summit Therapeutics and Akeso presented full overall survival data from the HARMONi-6 Phase 3 trial https://ir.summiththerapeutics.com/news-releases/news-release-details/summit-therapeutics-announces-harmonically-selected-data-asco at the ASCO 2026 plenary. The trial tested ivonescimab, a PD-1 times VEGF bispecific antibody, against tislelizumab BeiGene’s $BGNE PD-1 inhibitor plus chemotherapy in first-line squamous non-small cell lung cancer NSCLC . The result: a hazard ratio of 0.66 95% CI: 0.50-0.87, p=0.0017 , a median OS of 27.89 months for ivonescimab versus 23.69 months for the comparator, and a 24-month OS rate of 64.7% versus 48.6%. Summit filed an 8-K on June 1 disclosing the data. 🧠 BPS Take:If you were following the social media reaction to HARMONi-6, you probably saw the ASCO discussant, Dr. Julie Brahmer, point out several flaws in HARMONi-6 that muddy or at best narrow the interpretation of the results. I’ll summarize her main points here in case you missed it: Data was in Chinese patients only, so translatability to a global population is still TBD The study barely had any women in it I don’t think she specifically made this one, but I saw several others make it The control arm of tislelizumab + chemo isn’t the global standard. Tislelizumab is a chinese PD-1 and most global patients with 1L SQ NSCLC typically get pembro + chemo, which showed a median OS of 30-months in the China only Keynote-47 study. Basically she is saying maybe the control arm would’ve performed better, but most people think the China-only results for Pembro were kind of an outlier. The study protocol also excluded certain patients with major blood vessel invasion, significant tumor cavitation/necrosis, and significant hemoptysis. The issue here being that VEGFs carry a lot of bleeding risk, and these patients are more likely to be bleeders. Thus this could have been done to make the safety profile look a bit better, or clinically, it narrows the potential population you would consider for this drug. Study excluded patients who were over 75 years of age. The median age for lung cancer patients in the US is roughly 70 years old, so HARMONi-6 looked at a younger and potentially fitter population that is still less translatable to global or western populations. So frankly, all her criticisms are fair and warranted. In fact, Summit’s stock tanked because of this, but that probably was a bit of an overreaction. The Summit data, despite all the caveats above were still quite strong and is evidence of an active and effective drug. They showed an OS benefit in squamous 1L NSCLC, where VEGFs have not done so well in the past and where the bleeding risk is naturally higher just given the histology of the disease vs. non-squamous. Also, I felt like Brahmer was holding the study to a global standard, knowing that it was an entirely Chinese data set. No reasonable person went into this data readout thinking it would meet an FDA approvable standard. It was merely a peak into HARMONi-3, the study SMMT 0.00%↑ is going to use for US approval. Completely fair criticisms. Unrealistic expectations.It does set up HARMONi-3 to be heavily scrutinized too. Summit will need to make sure they present clean data with sound design and no odd biostats shenanigans. I have my doubts that these China-only data sets are translatable to a global population. I’m also not sure that PD-1xVEGF is the 1L NSCLC class we should be looking at to dethrone pembrolizumab more on that in a forthcoming paid post . Otsuka’s VOYXACT Preserves Kidney Function Over 12 Months in IgAN. The APRIL Inhibitor Class Just Got Its Confirmatory eGFR Data https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260604316661/en/Otsuka-Presents-Positive-Interim-Phase-3-VISIONARY-eGFR-Data-Showing-VOYXACT-sibeprenlimab-szsi-Preserved-Kidney-Function-Over-12-Months-in-IgA-Nephropathy-IgAN 📅 June 4, 2026 | 🏥 Otsuka Pharmaceutical TYO: 4578 | 💊 VOYXACT sibeprenlimab-szsi , selective APRIL inhibitor | 📄 VISIONARY Phase 3 Interim eGFR Analysis. ERA Congress 2026 Otsuka reported pre-specified interim 12-month eGFR data from the global Phase 3 VISIONARY trial n=320; sibeprenlimab n=152, placebo n=168 at the ERA Congress in Glasgow. Sibeprenlimab patients showed a mean eGFR change from baseline of +0.7 mL/min/1.73 m² 95% CI -0.9 to 2.3 versus -4.8 mL/min/1.73 m² 95% CI -6.3 to -3.3 in placebo, a treatment effect of 5.5 mL/min/1.73 m² 95% CI 3.4 to 7.6 . Annualized eGFR slope was -3.0 mL/min/1.73 m²/year for sibeprenlimab versus -7.6 for placebo, a 4.6 mL/min/1.73 m²/year treatment effect. The on-treatment eGFR change met the KDIGO goal of bringing annual decline within the normal physiological rate of less than 1 mL/min/1.73 m²/year. Safety profile was comparable to placebo with infections 49 percent versus 45 percent and injection site reactions 24 percent versus 23 percent as the most common AEs. Otsuka has initiated a rolling sBLA submission to the FDA for traditional approval based on the 24-month eGFR endpoint. VOYXACT received accelerated approval on November 25, 2025 based on proteinuria reduction. 🧠 BPS Take:The eGFR data is the asset that converts VOYXACT’s accelerated approval into a traditional approval and locks in the commercial story. Accelerated approvals on proteinuria reduction in IgAN are how the modern wave of nephrology drugs has cleared the bar Filspari, Tarpeyo, and now VOYXACT , but proteinuria is a surrogate. The hard endpoint that nephrologists, payers, and KOLs actually care about is whether the drug preserves kidney function over time, which is what determines whether a patient ends up on dialysis or transplant.The -3.0 mL/min/1.73 m² slope at 12 months, is clinically meaningful, but potentially competitively weak. It leaves room for BAFF/APRIL inhibitors from Vertex VRTX 0.00%↑ and Vera VERA 0.00%↑ to beat. Vera is gearing up for their own eGFR readout in Q3 of this year and has been a hot buyout target. Their P2b data showed a long-term eGFR slope that was basically flat, meaning normal kidney function.It’s unclear whether Vera will hit that high bar in their P3 readout, but the -3.0 number posted by Otsuka came in lower than expected, giving Vera plenty of room to differentiate. If their data impress, that could be the trigger for buyout bids from bigger players. 🌎 CONNECTING THE DOTS When the outside world meets biopharma CAR-T Crosses Into Transplant Immunology. Two NEJM Papers Show CAR-T Can Make Functionally Non-Transplantable Kidney Patients Transplantable https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/car-t-therapy-brings-hope-kidney-patients-with-few-transplant-options-2026-06-05/ 📅 June 4 to 5, 2026 | 🏥 University of Pennsylvania Ali Naji , German research team | 💊 CAR-T cell therapy for HLA desensitization in kidney transplantation | 📄 NEJM publications Two research teams reported in NEJM on June 4 that CAR-T therapy successfully desensitized three highly HLA-sensitized kidney transplant candidates two at Penn under Ali Naji, one in Germany , depleted donor-directed antibodies enough to enable transplantation, and all three patients went on to receive functional donor kidneys. Sensitization, driven by prior transfusions, pregnancies, or prior transplants, has historically rendered these patients functionally non-transplantable because their pre-formed antibodies reject most available donor kidneys. The desensitization approach uses anti-CD19 or CD19/BCMA constructs to deplete the B-cells and plasmablasts producing the donor-directed antibodies, then completes the transplant against a now-clean immune background. 🧠 BPS Take:I was very surprised to see this make it into Reuters. Let’s go CAR-T The first half of the article is about this new transplant application, and the second goes into some updates with CAR-Ts in auto-immune conditions which we know is continuing to become a bigger and bigger deal .In the context of transplant, “sensitization” means the patient has already developed antibodies against the incoming foreign organ and there is a very high chance that it will get rejected. For this group of patients, finding a suitable transplant is incredibly difficult. Many of these patients looking for a kidney transplant spend years on dialysis because finding a suitable match that their body won’t reject is just too difficult. So basically this approach, using a CD19 or CD19/BCMA CAR-T works int he same way that we see with CAR-Ts for autoimmune diseases. The CAR-Ts go in an deplete all your B-Cells and in the case of BCMA your plasma cells too and essentially “reset” your B-cell compartment so that the cells that were producing antibodies against the incoming transplant organ are gone. The CAR-Ts in a way help your B-cells “forget” that the organ is foreign so that it can be transplanted. Then chronic immunosuppressants can kick in and prevent long-term rejection. The strategic question is whether autologous CAR-T is the right tool, or could you achieve the same results with a lower-cost and faster turnaround time options like in vivo CAR-T and allogeneic CAR-T. The market here could be reasonably sized. This study looked at the most sensitized patients and only for kidney transplants. Expand that to other organs heart, lung, liver, etc. and lower the sensitization threshold let’s say down to 80% and it could be amount to a reasonably sized orphan market opportunity that commands premium pricing. Beyond that there is tremendous value added back to the healthcare system by reducing dialysis utilization, reduced waitlist attrition, increasing the capacity of transplants, and also increasing the pool of potential compatible donor organs. 💰 FOLLOW THE MONEY Deals, dollars, and what they signal Pfizer Licenses Chai-3 for Antibody Design https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260602498831/en/Chai-Discovery-Announces-License-Agreement-with-Pfizer-to-Accelerate-Drug-Discovery-with-AI and Alnylam Bets Up to $2B on Inceptive for RNA https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/alnylam-inceptive-ai-drug-discovery-rna-deal-artificial-intelligence/822008/ . Big Pharma Is Building a Modality-Specific AI Stack 📅 June 3 to 4, 2026 | 🏥 Pfizer PFE 0.00%↑ https://substack.com/search/%24PFE plus Chai Discovery private , Alnylam Pharmaceuticals ALNY 0.00%↑ https://substack.com/search/%24ALNY plus Inceptive private | 💊 Chai-3 antibody design AI platform, Inceptive RNA generative AI platform | 📄 AI Discovery Platform Licensing Deals Two AI platform licensing deals landed in 48 hours. Pfizer signed a license agreement with Chai Discovery https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260602498831/en/Chai-Discovery-Announces-License-Agreement-with-Pfizer-to-Accelerate-Drug-Discovery-with-AI for early access to the Chai-3 antibody design model plus a custom model trained on Pfizer’s proprietary data. Financial terms were not disclosed. Lilly LLY signed an essentially identical structure with Chai earlier in 2026, also receiving the base model plus a Lilly-data-trained custom build. Chai is OpenAI-backed and closed a $130M Series B at a $1.3B valuation in December 2025, with reporting from Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2026/06/04/why-pfizer-and-eli-lilly-are-betting-on-this-13-billion-ai-drug-discovery-startup/ indicating it is in talks to raise another $400M. The same day, Alnylam announced a three-year collaboration with Inceptive https://investors.alnylam.com/press-release?id=29941 valued at up to $2B in milestones with $30M upfront in cash and equity. Inceptive builds generative machine learning models specifically for RNA biology, and the collaboration pairs that platform with Alnylam’s 20-plus years of RNAi data to design and prioritize next-generation RNA therapeutics. Inceptive was founded by Jakob Uszkoreit, a co-author of the original transformer architecture paper. 🧠 BPS Take:The two deals look superficially similar but tell different stories. Chai is slowly becoming the go-to antibody design vendor for Big Pharma. Pfizer and Lilly are now both on the same foundation model with custom layers trained on their proprietary data, which means the foundation model itself has commoditized at this layer and the competitive edge sits in the quality of the proprietary training data each pharma brings.The Alnylam/Inceptive deal is the more strategically tailored bet. Alnylam is the global leader in RNAi, and Inceptive is one of the very few AI shops built specifically for RNA design rather than protein structure. Read more implicitly, this is Alnylam operating like a bigger player in the space, striking Big Pharma type AI collabs, but maintaining a clear focus within their core expertise. NewLimit Raises $435M Series C as Aging Reprogramming Hits Its First Capital Inflection. Founders Fund Leads, Lilly Ventures Returns https://blog.newlimit.com/p/newlimit-raises-435m-led-by-founders 📅 June 2026 | 🏥 NewLimit private | 💊 Liver-targeted epigenetic age reprogramming therapy preclinical | 📄 Series C Financing Close NewLimit closed a $435M Series C led by Founders Fund with new investors Thrive Capital, Greenoaks, and Quiet Capital joining returning backers including Kleiner Perkins, Abstract, Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, Valor Equity Partners, Eli Lilly Ventures, and Human Capital. The company plans to initiate its first human clinical trial in 2026 with a liver age reprogramming therapy designed to restore youthful function in aged hepatocytes via epigenetic reprogramming. The stated indications include faster liver healing after injury, protection from dietary challenge, and accelerated recovery from alcohol consumption. NewLimit was founded in 2021 by Brian Armstrong Coinbase , Blake Byers former GV , and CEO Jacob Kimmel. 🧠 BPS Take:NewLimit’s $435M sits next to Retro Biosciences’ recent $1.8B pre-money in the small group of longevity companies that are drawing in large sums of institutional capital, and the read across both rounds is the same. The groups that are writing the biggest checks to fund these huge longevity rounds are typically tech-first funds. This mix tends to make these roudns feel more like a SpaceX or OpenAI style growth round rather than a traditional biotech Series C. The investors are probably not thinking too critically about the clinical probability of success and doing deep scientific diligence. They are investing based on the “100x” opportunity and the credibility of the founding team.None of that is a slight on NewLimit at all. Biotech is super hard. Take the most money you can from wherever you can get it. Use it wisely to take measured, but big swings, at transformational science. Unlike some other longevity focused biotechs who have kind of just been spinning their wheels for five years, burning through cash from their billionaire benefactors, and not really making any progress towards testing drugs in the clinic. NewLimit seems to be wired a bit differently. I give them a ton of credit for actually trying to make progress towards getting a drug approved. NewLimit’s lead program, NLMT1001, looks to be targeting alcohol-associated liver disease. They appear to be starting here and may eventually look to expand into broader metabolic syndrome over time. I see the vision for this sequencing. CytomX and Regeneron Expand 2022 Conditional Bispecific Collaboration. $37M Target Payment Now, $4B in Total Milestones, and Regeneron Gets Six More Shots on Goal https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/06/03/3305966/37704/en/CytomX-Announces-Expansion-of-Strategic-Research-Collaboration-with-Regeneron-in-the-Field-of-Conditional-Bispecific-Therapeutics-for-the-Treatment-of-Cancer.html 📅 June 3, 2026 | 🏥 CytomX Therapeutics CTMX 0.00%↑ https://substack.com/search/%24CTMX and Regeneron REGN 0.00%↑ https://substack.com/search/%24REGN | 💊 Conditional bispecific antibodies combining CytomX PROBODY masking with Regeneron Veloci-Bi bispecific platform | 📄 Collaboration Expansion CytomX and Regeneron expanded their 2022 conditional bispecific oncology collaboration. CytomX gets a $37 million target nomination payment now for two additional programs that have been selected. Regeneron secures an option to select up to six additional future targets. Total potential value across target nomination payments and preclinical, clinical, regulatory, and commercial milestones could reach approximately $4 billion. Regeneron funds preclinical and clinical development and commercialization. CytomX is eligible for tiered global net sales royalties on covered products. The scientific premise is combining CytomX’s PROBODY masking, which keeps a biologic inactive until tumor-microenvironment proteases activate it, with Regeneron’s Veloci-Bi bispecific platform, with the aim of widening the therapeutic window for T-cell engagers in solid tumors that have been historically difficult for immunotherapy. 🧠 BPS Take:Regeneron has been working with PROBODY masking since 2022 and is now scaling to up to eight total targets, which says they have seen internal preclinical data clean enough to justify a multi-target platform commitment. That’s a big deal on its own, but an even bigger deal, given that Regeneron isn’t known to do a whole lot of partnerships or acquisitions. That implicitly signals real conviction from them.T-cell engagers and bispecifics in solid tumors have seen many failures and hurdles due to both lack of efficacy and toxicity. However, conditional activation via tumor-specific proteases is starting to show some real signs of differentiation as evidenced players who possess masking platforms, like VIR 0.00%↑ and JANX 0.00%↑ .The harder question is for CTMX shareholders. CytomX has a history of platform deals that produce milestone economics but not franchise economics BMS walked in 2022, the AbbVie/ImmunoGen tie-up produced Varseta-M which CytomX still has to develop itself, Amgen and Moderna collaborations exist but have not yet produced visible clinical assets . This Regeneron expansion is the strongest external validation the PROBODY platform has, but it also reinforces the question of whether CytomX is best evaluated as a platform-out licensing company or as a product company. Back next week with more BioPharma strategy takes Share this with a friend or colleague if you found it helpful.