On April 21, 2026 IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: IDYA), a leading precision medicine oncology company, reported they have been selected for a late-breaking abstract (LBA) oral presentation to provide the complete data from the Phase 2/3 registrational trial (OptimUM-02) of darovasertib in combination with crizotinib in first-line (1L) HLA*A2-negative metastatic uveal melanoma at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) (Free ASCO Whitepaper) Annual Meeting, taking place on May 29-June 2 in Chicago, Illinois. The presentation will include detail and additional data from OptimUM-02 that were not disclosed with the company’s topline release.

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Presentation details

Late-Breaking Abstract Number: LBA9503

Date and Time: June 1, 2026, 8-11AM CDT, Oral Abstract Session, Melanoma/Skin Cancers

Title: Darovasertib Plus Crizotinib vs Investigator’s Choice as First-Line Treatment for Patients with HLA-A2 Negative Metastatic Uveal Melanoma: Primary Results from the OptimUM-02 trial

Presenter: Dr. Marlana Orloff, M.D., Associate Professor of Medical Oncology, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital

(Press release, Ideaya Biosciences, APR 21, 2026, View Source [SID1234664637])

On April 21, 2026 Ascentage Pharma Group International (NASDAQ: AAPG; HKEX: 6855), a global, commercial stage, integrated biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery, development and commercialization of novel, differentiated therapies to address unmet medical needs in cancer, reported that six abstracts from clinical studies of three key drug candidates have been selected for presentation at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) (Free ASCO Whitepaper) Annual Meeting, to be held in person at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL, and online, May 29 – June 2, 2026. With three abstracts selected for rapid oral presentations and three abstracts selected for poster presentations, these data highlight the global innovation and clinical value of Ascentage Pharma’s portfolio, inclusive of Olverembatinib (HQP1351), the first third-generation BCR-ABL inhibitor approved in China; Lisaftoclax (APG-2575), the first approved China-developed Bcl-2 selective inhibitor; and Alrizomadlin (APG-115), an MDM2-p53 inhibitor.

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The ASCO (Free ASCO Whitepaper) Annual Meeting showcases cutting-edge research in clinical oncology and advanced cancer therapies and is the world’s most prominent scientific gathering in the oncology community.

Dr. Yifan Zhai, Chief Medical Officer of Ascentage Pharma, said, "This marks Ascentage Pharma’s ninth consecutive year presenting at the ASCO (Free ASCO Whitepaper) Annual Meeting. We are pleased to once again present our global innovation and R&D capabilities on this premier international stage. The selection of data from multiple studies this year, including three rapid oral presentations, further underscores the global scientific community’s recognition of the clinical value of our drug candidates. We look forward to sharing comprehensive data during the meeting and continuing to accelerate our global clinical development programs, with the goal of bringing more treatment options to patients as soon as possible."

The clinical studies to be presented at this year’s ASCO (Free ASCO Whitepaper) Annual Meeting are as follows:

Rapid oral presentations
Olverembatinib (HQP1351) combined with blinatumomab in patients with lymphoid blast phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML-LBP) or Philadelphia chromosome-positive B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ BCP-ALL)

Abstract #: 6513
Format: Rapid oral presentation
Session Title: Hematologic Malignancies—Leukemia, Myelodysplastic Syndromes, and Allotransplant
Date and Time: May 30, 2026, 1:15 – 2:45 p.m., Central Time (May 31, 2026, 2:15 – 3:45 a.m., Beijing Time)
First Author: Elias Jabbour, MD, Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Updated efficacy and safety of Olverembatinib (HQP1351) as second-line therapy in patients with chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CP-CML)

Abstract #: 6510
Format: Rapid oral presentation
Session Title: Hematologic Malignancies—Leukemia, Myelodysplastic Syndromes, and Allotransplant
Date and Time: May 30, 2026, 1:15 – 2:45 p.m., Central Time (May 31, 2026, 2:15 – 3:45 a.m., Beijing Time)
First Author: Weiming Li, MD, Department of Hematology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
Alrizomadlin (APG-115) alone or in combination with lisaftoclax (APG-2575) for the treatment of pediatric patients with relapsed/metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) or other soft-tissue sarcomas (STSs)

Abstract #: 10012
Format: Rapid oral presentation
Session Title: Pediatric Oncology II
Date and Time: May 30, 2026, 8:00 – 9:30 a.m., Central Time (May 30, 2026, 9:00 -10:30 p.m., Beijing Time)
First Author: Yizhuo Zhang, MD, Department of Pediatric Oncology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, China
Poster Presentations
Updated clinical and translational results of Olverembatinib (HQP1351) in patients with succinate dehydrogenase (SDH)-deficient tumors

Abstract #: 11539
Format: Poster presentation
Session Title: Sarcoma
Date and Time: June 1, 2026, 1:30 – 4:30 p.m., Central Time (June 2, 2026, 2:30 – 5:30 a.m., Beijing Time)
First Author: Haibo Qiu, MD, PhD, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center; State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, China
A phase 3 study of Olverembatinib (HQP1351) in patients with chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia: POLARIS-2 trial in progress

Abstract #: TPS6608
Format: Poster presentation
Session Title: Hematologic Malignancies—Leukemia, Myelodysplastic Syndromes, and Allotransplant
Date and Time: June 1, 2026, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., Central Time (June 1, 2026, 10:00 p.m. -Tuesday June 2, 2026, 1:00 a.m., Beijing Time)
First Author: Elias Jabbour, MD, Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
A global multicenter, open-label, randomized, phase 3 registrational study of Lisaftoclax (APG-2575) in previously treated chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL): GLORA trial in progress

Abstract #: TPS7101
Format: Poster presentation
Session Title: Hematologic Malignancies—Lymphoma and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
Date and Time: June 1, 2026, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., Central Time (June 1, 2026, 10:00 p.m. -Tuesday June 2, 2026, 1:00 a.m., Beijing Time)
First Author: Matthew Steven Davids, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
* Olverembatinib, Lisaftoclax and Alrizomadlin are currently under investigation and have not yet been approved by the FDA in the US.

(Press release, Ascentage Pharma, APR 21, 2026, View Source [SID1234664653])

On April 21, 2026 Nanjing Leads Biolabs Co., Ltd. ("Leads Biolabs" or the "Company," Stock Code: 9887.HK) reported that the first patient has been successfully dosed in a phase Ⅱ clinical study evaluating Opamtistomig (LBL-024), the company’s core investigational PD-L1/4-1BB bispecific antibody, for the first-line treatment of locally advanced or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.

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Early symptoms of gastric cancer are often subtle and easily overlooked, leading to most patients being diagnosed at an advanced stage and facing a generally poor prognosis. PD-1 antibody combined with chemotherapy is recommended as the first-line treatment for advanced disease, with median progression-free survival (PFS) at only 7 months and median overall survival (OS) ranging from 13 to 17 months. Crucially, for patients with Combined Positive Score (CPS) <5, immunotherapy demonstrates no statistically significant benefit. These limitations highlight the urgent need to optimize and enhance treatment strategies.

Opamtistomig is a uniquely engineered bispecific antibody designed to simultaneously block PD-1/L1-mediated immune suppression and selectively activate the 4-1BB co-stimulatory pathway. By restoring T-cell functionality and expanding effector T-cell populations within the tumor microenvironment, Opamtistomig has the potential to deliver more potent and durable anti-tumor activity than PD-1/PD-L1 blockade alone, particularly in difficult-to-treat and immunotherapy-resistant tumors. To date, Opamtistomig has demonstrated first- or best-in-class potential in Phase II or registrational clinical trials across three indications: non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), small cell lung cancer (SCLC), and extrapulmonary neuroendocrine carcinoma (EP-NEC).

The open-label, multi-center Phase Ⅱ clinical study is led by Professor Shen Lin of Beijing Cancer Hospital and is being conducted across multiple hospitals in China. The trial aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Opamtistomig in patients with locally advanced or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.

Executive Commentary
Dr. Charles Cai, Chief Medical Officer of Leads Biolabs, stated: "The current standard of care—PD-1 inhibitors combined with chemotherapy—provides limited clinical benefit despite being recommended as first-line therapy. With a five-year OS rate of merely 9%, advanced gastric cancer demands transformative solutions. Opamtistomig’s Phase Ⅱ trial is strategically designed to leverage its dual-mechanism synergistic enhancement, positioning it to overcome current treatment limitations and establish a new therapeutic paradigm."

About Gastric Cancer
According to data published in 2022 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization, there were approximately 968,000 new cases and 660,000 deaths from gastric cancer worldwide, making it the fifth most common cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer mortality globally. China is a high‑incidence country for gastric cancer, with 359,000 new cases (37.1% of global incidence) and 260,000 deaths (39.4% of global mortality) each year, far exceeding global averages. Because early‑stage gastric cancer usually lacks obvious symptoms, only about 20% of cases in China are diagnosed early; the majority are already advanced at diagnosis, resulting in poor overall prognosis and a five‑year survival rate of only around 9%.

About Opamtistomig (LBL-024)
Opamtistomig (LBL-024) is a potential first-in-class bispecific antibody that simultaneously targets PD-L1 and the co-stimulatory receptor 4-1BB. It is the first 4-1BB–targeting bispecific antibody globally to advance to a single-arm pivotal trial as monotherapy, and it holds promise to become the first approved therapy specifically for extrapulmonary neuroendocrine carcinoma (EP-NEC)—a rare malignancy with substantial unmet clinical need.

Developed using Leads Biolabs’ proprietary X-Body bispecific platform, Opamtistomig features a 2:2 molecular format, incorporating two binding domains each for PD-L1 and 4-1BB with an optimized affinity ratio. This unique design enables dual functionality: reversing PD-L1–mediated immune suppression while selectively enhancing T-cell activation, resulting in a potent and synergistic anti-tumor immune response.

In two ongoing clinical studies in China, Opamtistomig has demonstrated promising efficacy and a favorable safety profile in patients with advanced EP-NEC, both as monotherapy and in combination with chemotherapy. Given the absence of a globally accepted standard of care for EP-NEC, these results support the advancement of a single-arm pivotal study toward potential accelerated approval.

Recognizing its clinical potential, Opamtistomig received Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) in October 2024, and Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of neuroendocrine carcinoma in November 2024. Additionally, in January 2026, Opamtistomig was granted Fast Track Designation (FTD) by the FDA and ODD by the European Commission for the treatment of EP-NEC, further underscoring its potential to address unmet medical needs in this patient population.

Mechanistically, 4-1BB agonism can reactivate exhausted T cells and promote robust T-cell proliferation, offering significant promise for PD-1/PD-L1–resistant or immunologically "cold" tumors. Beyond EP-NEC, Opamtistomig has received clinical trial approvals across multiple tumor types with high unmet medical needs, including small cell lung cancer (SCLC), biliary tract cancer (BTC), ovarian cancer (OC), non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), gastric cancer (GC), triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), and malignant melanoma. Encouraging clinical activity has already been observed in NSCLC, SCLC, BTC, OC, and other indications, underscoring Opamtistomig’s potential as a broad-spectrum immuno-oncology therapy.

(Press release, Nanjing Leads Biolabs, APR 21, 2026, View Source [SID1234664669])

On April 21, 2026 Crown Bioscience, a global contract research organization (CRO) and a JSR Life Sciences company, reported a strategic partnership with Turbine, a leading virtual biology company, to advance translational oncology research by integrating Turbine’s in silico Virtual Assays with its Tumor Organoid Assays based on HUB Organoid Technology. This collaboration establishes a connected workflow that enables researchers to move more efficiently from hypothesis to validation.

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Turbine’s Virtual Assays simulate biological response across thousands of biological samples and hundreds of drugs, generating predictive insights to identify and prioritize targets, therapies, and combinations. The predictions will be enhanced through the incorporation of multimodal and drug response data from hundreds of tumor organoid models at Crown Bioscience. Together, the companies create a closed-loop approach linking prediction with validation, improving predictive accuracy, reducing experimental burden, whilst delivering greater biological relevance and translational confidence.

Guided by Turbine’s in silico predictions, select hypotheses can be experimentally validated using Crown Bioscience’s tumor organoid assays, streamlining experimental design, reducing costs, and shortening development timelines.

This approach enables researchers to generate insights earlier, focus resources on the most promising strategies, and make faster, more informed decisions with greater confidence in clinical translatability.

"Translational success depends on how well early insights reflect real patient biology," said John Gu, CEO of Crown Bioscience. "By integrating predictive modeling with our organoid models, we are creating a more robust foundation for decision-making, one that improves confidence, reduces risk, and accelerates the path to the clinic."

"Together with Crown Bioscience, we aim to address a key trade-off in drug discovery between scale and translatability," said Szabolcs Nagy, CEO of Turbine. "Using our Virtual Lab, researchers can already explore millions of hypotheses in silico. By integrating with Crown’s organoid platform, we enable virtual experimentation that better reflects patient biology, helping close the translatability gap."

(Press release, Crown Bioscience, APR 21, 2026, View Source [SID1234664606])

On April 21, 2026 Verismo Therapeutics, a clinical-stage CAR T cell therapy company pioneering a novel multi-chain KIR-CAR platform technology, reported new preclinical in vivo data for SynKIR-310 KIR-CAR living medicine, highlighting KIR-CAR’s superior anti-tumor activity and improved cytokine profile compared to conventional single-chain CAR T in B cell malignancies. Early clinical data for SynKIR-310 KIR-CAR were also announced from a multi-site Phase 1 clinical trial, CELESTIAL-301 (NCT06544265) for patients with B cell lymphomas, highlighting a patient’s ongoing complete response after 6 months. These data were presented on April 21 at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting 2026 in San Diego, CA (Poster Number: 5193).

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"While single-chain CAR T therapies have revolutionized blood cancer treatment, nearly half of blood cancer patients who initially respond relapse as early as six months after treatment,[1]" said Laura A. Johnson, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Verismo Therapeutics. "This urgent patient need is precisely why we designed multi-chain SynKIR-310 KIR-CAR with a natural ‘on-off’ switch to potentially address chronic T cell exhaustion and increase durability.

"We are excited to report new preclinical data showing SynKIR-310 KIR-CAR improved anti-tumor activity with reduced cytokine production compared to a conventional single-chain CAR T approach. We’re also encouraged that early clinical observation of one patient in our CELESTIAL-301 trial achieved a complete tumor response that remains ongoing beyond six months. Together, these data support continued clinical evaluation of the KIR-CAR platform and SynKIR-310, specifically in patients with relapsed or refractory B cell malignancies, including follicular lymphoma."

These preclinical data were shared during poster session "Adoptive Cell Therapy 2" by Megan Blair, Ph.D., In Vivo Lead at Verismo Therapeutics, on April 21, showing multi-chain SynKIR-310 KIR-CAR had enhanced anti-tumor activity in vivo compared to tisagenlecleucel and axicabtagene ciloleucel analogs, in B-NHL xenograft mouse models, with reduced cytokine production, while maintaining comparable T cell persistence. These findings suggest a potential favorable benefit-risk profile of multi-chain KIR-CAR compared to traditional single-chain CAR T.

Early clinical data from CELESTIAL-301 were also shared, highlighting treatment of a 70-year-old male patient with follicular lymphoma who received SynKIR-310 KIR-CAR at the lowest dose level (DL1) and achieved complete tumor response 28 days later, which remains ongoing as of their most recent 6-month follow-up appointment.

The CELESTIAL-301 trial is supported in part by the Institute for Follicular Lymphoma Innovation (IFLI), a global non-profit private foundation dedicated to accelerating the development of innovative treatment options for patients with follicular lymphoma, which has committed up to $4.05 million to advance SynKIR-310 KIR-CAR development in follicular lymphoma (FL) and expand patient enrollment in the trial.

"IFLI invested in SynKIR-310 because we believe its novel KIR-CAR architecture has the potential to meaningfully change the treatment trajectory for patients with follicular lymphoma who have exhausted standard options, including prior CAR T therapy," said David McCullagh, IFLI Managing Director. "Today’s data provide an important early signal supporting the potential of this platform. We look forward to continuing to support Verismo as they advance SynKIR-310 KIR-CAR toward broader clinical development in FL, along with other B cell malignancies."

About SynKIR-310 KIR-CAR and the CELESTIAL-301 Clinical Trial

SynKIR-310 is an investigational autologous engineered cell therapy developed using Verismo’s KIR-CAR platform. This approach utilizes a multi-chain, split-signaling architecture derived from natural killer cells, designed to drive long-term anti-tumor T cell function without T cell exhaustion. By keeping antigen recognition separate from T cell activation, the multi-chain architecture is intended to sustain T cell activity to provide a more durable response compared to single-chain CAR T approaches.

CELESTIAL-301 is a Phase 1 first-in-human, multi-center, open-label, basket clinical trial, evaluating SynKIR-310 KIR-CAR in patients with relapsed/refractory B-NHL, such as FL, and including those who have or have not previously received CD19 CAR T therapies. See clinicaltrials.gov (NCT06544265) for more information.

(Press release, Verismo Therapeutics, APR 21, 2026, View Source [SID1234664638])