Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Inc.

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Natera, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTRA), a global leader in cell-free DNA and precision medicine, today announced the appointments of Thomas Lynch, M.D., and Eric Rubin, M.D., to the Company’s board of directors. “Tom and Eric have helped lead some of the most important advances in modern oncology, and we are thrilled to welcome them to the Board,” said Matthew Rabinowitz, Ph.D., co-founder of Natera and executive chairman of the board. “Their deep expertise across evidence generation, clinical development, biopharma, and leading cancer research institutions will be incredibly valuable as Natera continues expanding the impact of precision diagnostics in patient care.” “The oncology field is moving toward more personalized and data-driven treatment decisions, and molecular diagnostics will play a critical role in that evolution,” said Dr. Lynch. “Natera has established itself as a leader in this space, and I’m excited to help support the company’s next phase of innovation and impact.” “It’s an honor to join Natera’s Board of Directors,” said Dr. Rubin. “Natera has built an exceptionally strong scientific and clinical foundation, and I look forward to supporting the company as it continues advancing molecular diagnostics and expanding the clinical evidence supporting precision oncology.” Dr. Lynch has joined the Human Capital Committee, and Dr. Rubin has joined the Nominating, Corporate Governance and Compliance Committee. Biographical Information Thomas Lynch Jr., M.D., is a world-renowned scientist, highly respected oncologist and successful NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center leader. As the President and Director of Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and holder of the Raisbeck Endowed Chair, Dr. Lynch brings more than three decades of experience at highly regarded U.S. cancer centers. He has expertise in solid tumor research, precision medicine and discoveries in fundamental biology. Before joining Fred Hutch, Dr. Lynch held leadership roles as CSO at Bristol-Myers Squibb, CEO of Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, director of Yale Cancer Center, physician-in-chief at Yale’s Smilow Cancer Hospital, as well as chief of hematology-oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lynch is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and The Washington State Academy of Sciences. Eric Rubin, M.D., brings more than 35 years of experience in cancer drug development across academic and industry settings, including leading large-scale oncology clinical programs. Most recently, he was senior vice president of global clinical oncology at Merck, where he held several senior leadership roles during his 16-year tenure and led the initial development of KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab), the first anti-PD-1 therapy approved in the United States. Earlier in his career, Dr. Rubin served as a faculty member at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and later as director of the investigational therapeutics division at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, where his research focused on oncology translational science. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and served on numerous national research and policy committees, including study sections for the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society, as well as program committees for the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. About Natera Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA and precision medicine, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. We aim to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard-of-care to protect health and inform earlier, more targeted interventions that help lead to longer, healthier lives. Natera’s tests are supported by more than 400 peer-reviewed publications that demonstrate excellent performance. Natera operates ISO 13485-certified and CAP-accredited laboratories certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) in Austin, Texas, and San Carlos, California, and through Foresight Diagnostics, its subsidiary, operates an ISO 27001-certified and CAP-accredited laboratory certified under CLIA in Boulder, Colorado. For more information, visit www.natera.com. Forward-Looking Statements All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release are forward-looking statements and are not a representation that Natera’s plans, estimates, or expectations will be achieved. These forward-looking statements represent Natera’s expectations as of the date of this press release, and Natera disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including with respect to our efforts to develop and commercialize new product offerings, whether the results of clinical or other studies will support the use of our product offerings, the impact of results of such studies, our expectations of the reliability, accuracy, and performance of our tests, or of the benefits of our tests and product offerings to patients, providers, and payers. Additional risks and uncertainties are discussed in greater detail in "Risk Factors" in Natera’s recent filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, and in other filings Natera makes with the SEC from time to time. These documents are available at www.natera.com/investors and www.sec.gov.

CHICAGO The American Society of Clinical Oncologys annual meeting always features data with the potential to change clinical practice. This years meeting, though, was headlined by the kind of medical breakthrough cancer researchers have waited years for and progress for another class of medicine many believe to hold similarly standout potential.These two headlining presentations from Revolution Medicines in pancreatic cancer and Akeso and Summit Therapeutics in lung cancer dominated the discussion at McCormick Place on Sunday. But they were also just two of hundreds of studies that sparked debate that carried on outside presentation rooms and across convention center hallways, as well as at sales meetings, dinner tables and cocktail parties.Below are three storylines that emerged from ASCO.A bispecific vs. ADC clashBispecific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates have exploded in popularity in recent years, in part, for their potential to upend more traditional methods of cancer treatment. Bispecifics, as their name suggests, can get after two troublesome targets instead of one. And antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, are a form of precision chemotherapy designed to squarely aim tumor-killing toxins at cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue.Both drug types have been approved for multiple malignancies. But at ASCO this year, a battle began brewing between them in one of oncologys most competitive landscapes.Over the weekend, Merck & Co. and Akeso presented dueling datasets testing a bispecific and an ADC, respectively, in non-small cell lung cancer. Both were from Phase 3 trials in China that, if replicated in global studies, could enable their therapies to become essential front-line treatments.Leading up to the meeting, analysts and investors parsed through the details from Merck and partner Kelun Biotechs study of the ADC sac-TMT, and the implications its progress might have for Akeso and collaborator Summits bispecific ivonescimab. But at ASCO, some attendees were more skeptical that an ADC like sac-TMT would measure up.Though ADCs are designed to be safer than traditional chemotherapy, theyre still associated with side effects. Those toxicities come from the chemotherapy payload, and their severity can depend on how well the ADC keeps it out of systemic circulation, where it can cause broader harm. In the case of sac-TMT, some of those side effects include lung inflammation as well as mouth sores known as stomatitis.Some argue that, by comparison, the side effects a bispecific like ivonescimab adds when paired with a Keytruda-like drug may not be as burdensome. “You're not adding a lot of toxicity, and youre increasing the efficacy fairly substantially, said John Heymach, chair of thoracic and head and neck cancer care at MD Anderson Cancer Center, in an interview. (Heymach is an investigator in a study involving ivonescimab.)But not all ADCs have these toxicities. And in those that do, the side effects can often be proactively managed by treating physicians. Patients can be given eye drops to manage swelling in ocular tissue, ice chips during infusions and steroid-based mouth washes to reduce mouth soreness. They can also be educated to look for signs of lung problems, such as shortness of breath.You have to know what the toxicities are going to be and how to get patients through that treatment safely, which can certainly be done with some foresight and planning, said Krushangi Patel, a City of Hope oncologist, speaking in an interview about a different ADC called Datroway. Jonathan GardnerThe RAS revolutionRAS, a family of genes that, when mutated, drive a constellation of tumors, has long been seen as an unattainable Holy Grail of cancer research. But a series of recent discoveries have shown RAS mutations can finally be successfully targeted with drugs.Revolution Medicines pancreatic cancer medicine daraxonrasib is at the forefront of this scientific progress, but many more RAS-targeting drugs are quickly following, prompting Rachna Shroff, the hematology and oncology chief at the University of Arizonas Cancer Center to declare to journalists that the RAS revolution is here.Revolutions results which showed daraxonrasib nearly doubled survival in patients with a notoriously fast-moving and deadly disease drew a rare and spontaneous standing ovation at ASCO on Sunday. Jennifer Knox of the University of Toronto, the oncology expert ASCO asked to provide outside commentary, called the slide depicting that finding an absolutely beautiful curve.This is the first glimpse at the real power of targeting RAS in pancreas cancer, Knox said.Knox lamented the fact that many people in the setting daraxonrasib could be approved for second-line treatment, following an initial round of chemotherapy may die or decline too quickly before theyre eligible. Still, the data provide hope for whats to come. Revolution is already testing daraxonrasib in newly diagnosed patients. And more than 20 companies, including Roche, Eli Lilly, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim and BeOne Medicines, are following with different, experimental RAS-targeting drugs.That all suggests the story is just beginning, said Brian Wolpin, a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the daraxonrasib trials lead investigator.A RAS mutation is the founding event of pancreatic cancer, and now we've shown that you can drug that, and you can clearly benefit patients, he said.The next step will be science that lets us have long, durable responses and ultimately cure patients, Wolpin added, and I think it's here. Jonathan GardnerA paradigm shift in prostate cancerProstate cancer is often such a slow-growing tumor that it can be dealt with via active surveillance rather than any type of intervention. But in aggressive or high-risk cases, surgery to remove the prostate gland and some surrounding tissue can come next.For decades, that procedure has been the one way to effectively eliminate prostate cancer. But its not a cure-all; up to half of patients experience a recurrence within five years.Study results from Johnson &Johnson suggest there may be a new option ahead. In a Phase 3 trial called PROTEUS, the pill Erleada, when combined with a hormone therapy before and after prostate surgery, reduced the relative risk of disease progression and death by 20% compared to standard treatment. Patients who received it were nine-times more likely to have no cancer remaining at the time of their surgery. Treatment also helped lengthen the time before recipients needed additional treatment, according to findings presented at a plenary session on Sunday and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine.You have that moment where you could potentially give this patient curative-intent treatment, but once recurrence occurs, you've lost that opportunity, said Mark Wildgust, J&Js vice president of global medical affairs for oncology, in an interview. We had a conviction that Erleada was really different.Erleada is already approved for two different, advanced stages of prostate cancer and is now a blockbuster medicine for J&J. The drug brought in over $3.5 billion in revenue last year, a 19% jump from 2024, and generated $949 million in the first quarter of 2026.The latest data could drive those numbers much higher, making Erleada available to a much earlier, larger localized-disease population, wrote Leerink Partners David Risinger. Various sources estimate that about 50,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed each year, he added in a Monday note to clients.Treatment does come with caveats. Rates of serious adverse events, as well as treatment-related discontinuations, were higher among Erleada recipients. Wildgust, however, said combining Erleada with existing care only added a little bit more rash.But he believes the biggest challenge ahead for J&J will be convincing physicians to change practice and just changing peoples minds.Theres going to be a lot of questions, and were ready to support them in answering those questions, he said. Delilah Alvarado '

For GSK, ASCO was the perfect setting to share its plans to revolutionize treatment for a rare gut cancer that hasn\'t seen new innovation in decades.\n For patients with a rare cancer that arises in the gut wall, standard treatment hasn’t changed in the last 20 years. At the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, GSK shared a first look at its attempt to change that.GSK bought the precision medicine biotech IDRx in January 2025 to secure a small molecule that targets a type of enzyme called a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI). By specifically homing in on multiple mutations of the tyrosine kinase c-KIT, GSK hopes that the molecule, called velzatinib, can improve on the earlier TKIs Gleevec (imatinib) and Sutent (sunitinib).Novartis first garnered approval for Gleevec in metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) in 2002, and Pfizer followed with Sutent in 2006. Mutations in KIT cause GIST to develop in rare, specialized cells called interstitial cells of Cajal, which serve as the gut’s pacemaker.Non-metastatic GISTs can be removed surgically, but when the disease metastasizes, medicine must enter the conversation.“Imatinib is a very potent inhibitor of KIT,” Suzanne George, M.D., a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, told Fierce at ASCO. “But we\'ve learned over time that the primary mechanism of resistance to imatinib is the development of secondary mutations in KIT that imatinib does not work against.”For these secondary mutations, Sutent is deployed, with Bayer’s Stivarga (regorafenib) and Deciphera’s Qinlock (ripretinib) following in the third and fourth lines.  Velzatinib is designed to not only attack the main mutations in KIT that drive the formation of GISTs, but also the subsequent mutations that the tumors develop in order to combat Gleevec and Sutent, Hesham Abdullah, M.D., GSK’s head of oncology R&D, explained to Fierce at the pharma’s conference booth.In its ASCO debut, velzatinib was confirmed to shrink tumors in 61% of 24 first-line patients, GSK presented, and 38% of tumors among 49 second-line patients.While acknowledging that the first-line data come from a “limited cohort of patients” from IDRx’s phase 1 trial, Abdullah said the results provide “the first look of what this drug can do.” “The preliminary data from the phase 1 is very promising in terms of response rate and initial duration,” George agreed. In the second-line setting, velzatinib’s response rates trump those of Sutent, Abdullah added. “You would typically expect response rates with Sutent to be in the teens,” Abdullah said, “and we\'re looking at a median progression-free survival of about 17 months in second-line-plus patients, which is quite impressive.”In addition to cancer being able to evolve resistance to it, Sutent is also hampered by side effects caused by its broad activity—in addition to KIT, the drug also hits other targets, most notably the signaling protein VEGF. By homing in just on KIT, velzatinib should be gentler on patients, George said.GSK also used the poster session at ASCO to share details of a phase 3 trial for velzatinib in second-line patients who have already developed resistance to Gleevec. That trial, StrateGIST 3, is testing GSK’s upstart inhibitor against Sutent, and the British pharma is also planning a first-line phase 3 trial pitting velzatinib against Gleevec.The aim is to “redefine what the potential standard of care is,” Abdullah said, much as Gleevec did for GIST patients two decades ago.George, who contributed heavily to sunitinib’s development, is now on the steering committee for GKS’s phase 3 trials of velzatinib and presented the poster outlining the pharma’s StrateGIST 3 plans.GSK is not the only company looking to modernize GIST care. Cogent Biosciences presented full data from the phase 3 trial of its KIT inhibitor bezuclastinib at ASCO, too, demonstrating an average progression-free survival of 16.5 months in Gleevec-resistant patients when paired with Sutent compared to 9.2 months for Sutent alone.“Importantly, there was a clear benefit across all mutational patient subgroups,” Cogent president and CEO Andrew Robbins said in a May 30 release. Bezuclastinib is already sitting with the FDA for an approval decision, with a verdict expected by November 30.“We plan to launch bezuclastinib later this year and are well prepared to ensure bezuclastinib combination access for GIST patients in need,” Robbins said.Bezuclastinib targets a specific KIT mutation and thus needs to be used in combination with other KIT inhibitors to hit the full panoply. So, while it may become a new standard of care in second-line treatment, should it be approved, it has a less clear path to replacing Gleevec in newly diagnosed patients.“The rationale behind the combination of sunitinib and bezuclastinib is that you\'re hitting all the mutations,” Dana-Farber’s George explained. “The hope with drugs like velzatinib is that with a single drug, you will hit that broad range of mutations.”Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Ono Pharma, also previously tried to take its late-line GIST medicine Qinlock into second-line treatment, but the molecule failed to beat Sutent. A later analysis revealed some promising patient subgroups who may see stronger efficacy from Qinlock than Sutent, however, raising a potential opportunity that Deciphera is now pursuing.As the next generation of KIT inhibitors rises, George is excited by the prospect of combining them with other up-and-coming GIST targets that have yet to be revealed.“There is absolutely a lot of interest in thinking about combinations of KIT,” she told Fierce. “GIST is ripe for a really strong paradigm shift.”