Boehringer raises the bar for oral HER2 inhibitors at AACR 2025

The arsenal of therapeutics against HER2 could be on track to expand as selective small molecules raise the bar for efficacy. At this year’s American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting, Boehringer presented Phase I data from its oral HER2 inhibitor program suggesting a high level of efficacy in non-small cell lung cancer, without some of the serious adverse events that affect antibody-based therapies against the target.

Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH reported that in the Beamion LUNG-1 study of zongertinib, the small molecule led to a 71% objective response rate (ORR) and a 7% complete response (CR) rate in 75 previously treated NSCLC patients whose tumors had mutations in the HER2 tyriosine kinase domain. The monotherapy led to a median progression-free survival (PFS) of 12.4 months...