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American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2025: Gearing up for the early innovations in the upcoming week
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As the 2025 AACR annual meeting approaches tomorrow, excitement builds over the latest in cancer treatment advancements. From April 25–30, industry leaders will unveil new data on different therapies. Over 230 clinical trials have been submitted to the annual meeting this year.
What all to look forward to?
Pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, RareCyte, Accent Therapeutics, Innate Pharma, Agenus, Moleculin Biotech, Alpenglow Biosciences, Actuate Therapeutics, Senti Bio, Zymeworks, Nuvalent, MaaT Pharma, Avacta Therapeutics, CStone Pharmaceuticals, Norgen Biotek, and others are prepared to unveil the detailed abstract, and are set to grab this opportunity to present their innovations in different indications such as advanced solid tumors, refractory hepatocellular carcinoma, endometrial cancers, advanced salivary gland carcinoma, hematologic malignancies including AML, ROS1-positive metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
At the upcoming AACR meeting, biotech innovation will take center stage—Avacta will spotlight next-gen peptide drug conjugates AVA6000 and AVA6103, with a deep dive into FAPα, the protease driving their tumor-targeting platform. Alpenglow Biosciences will unveil multi-omic breakthroughs in endometrial-like cancers and showcase how 2D/3D spatial biology is reshaping oncology. Merck will reveal a powerful novel multiplex immunoassay, snRNP200-targeting CAR-T therapy, Cas9 base editors, and checkpoint marker quantification in melanoma. Nuvalent will present new preclinical data on ALK-selective Neladalkib and ROS1-targeting Zidesamtinib. MaaT Pharma will highlight MaaT034—an off-the-shelf, donor-free microbiome therapy designed to supercharge immunotherapy, building on the success of MaaT013.
Game-changing data incoming—get ready for trial results that could reshape clinical practice
Two headline-making trial readouts are set to energize AACR 2025: Merck’s KEYNOTE-689 and Boehringer Ingelheim’s (BI) Beamion’s LUNG-1.
In October 2024, Merck announced that KEYNOTE-689, a Phase III study in resected stage III/IVA LA-HNSCC, showed a significant boost in event-free survival with a regimen of neoadjuvant pembrolizumab, followed by adjuvant pembrolizumab, radiotherapy ± cisplatin, and maintenance therapy. This breakthrough will take center stage in a clinical plenary on April 27, 2025. Meanwhile, BI’s Beamion LUNG-1 will highlight zongertinib’s promise in HER2-mutant NSCLC, with Phase Ib data. At the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC), last September, showed a 72% ORR, and over 63% of responders were still on treatment. The exciting findings will be unveiled during the therapeutic advances in NSCLC session (CTPLO3) on April 28, 2025
Poster presentations to be presented at the upcoming conference
Spotlight on First-in-Class ADCs with Breakthrough Potential
Dual-Payload ADCs Set to Redefine Cancer Treatment at AACR
Chengdu Kanghong’s KH815 may reach the clinic first, but key challenges remain. Dual-payload ADCs carry added toxicity risks—especially with payloads like RNA polymerase inhibitors used in KH815. Designing these ADCs requires more than simply adding two payloads to a monoclonal antibody. CrossBridge, for example, developed a custom linker specifically for this purpose. The goal is to address resistance mechanisms—patients can relapse due to both antigen loss and payload resistance. Whether dual-payload ADCs can overcome this will only be proven in clinical trials.
Expectations from AACR’s Anticipated Clinical Trials Plenaries
Roche will present first-in-human data for its Werner helicase inhibitor RO7589831, licensed from Vividion for USD 135 million, targeting synthetic lethality—a mechanism gaining interest but still lacking strong clinical validation. Revolution’s zoldonrasib will share NSCLC data following earlier pancreatic cancer results, and Joyo’s ROS1 inhibitor JYP0322, aimed at overcoming G2032R resistance, will also debut first-in-human results.
Executive Summary
As the 2025 AACR annual meeting approaches tomorrow, excitement builds over the latest in cancer treatment advancements. From April 25–30, industry leaders will unveil new data on different therapies. Over 230 clinical trials have been submitted to the annual meeting this year.