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Day 1 — Friday, May 29 (Education Day; first LBAs)

The meeting opened at 1 PM CT with Education Day, but the day's clinical news was driven by the first late-breaking abstracts released at 7 AM CT. The headline belonged to thoracic oncology: in WU-KONG28 (LBA8500), first-line single-agent sunvozertinib beat platinum-doublet chemotherapy in EGFR exon20ins advanced NSCLC — median PFS 10.3 vs 7.5 months (HR 0.65, P=.0008) and confirmed ORR 58.9% vs 31.1% — with simultaneous publication in NEJM. It is the first positive randomized phase 3 to establish an oral targeted agent over chemotherapy in the front line for this historically hard-to-drug subset, and a likely springboard to full approval and a label expansion.

Lung — a targeted-therapy sweep

Friday was a banner day for precision thoracic oncology. Beyond WU-KONG28, the CROWN 7-year update (Abstract 8502, simultaneous Annals of Oncology) extended one of the most durable readouts in solid tumors: first-line lorlatinib vs crizotinib in ALK+ NSCLC, median PFS still not reached vs 9.1 months (HR 0.19), with 55% vs 3% of patients progression-free at 7 years and an intracranial HR of 0.06. In the immunotherapy-combination lane, OptiTROP-Lung05 (Abstract 8506, simultaneous Lancet) showed the TROP2 ADC sac-TMT plus pembrolizumab nearly halving progression risk vs pembrolizumab alone in 1L PD-L1+ NSCLC — median PFS not reached vs 5.7 months (HR 0.35), ORR 70.2% vs 42.0%.

Heme — bispecific and CELMoD wins in myeloma

Plasma-cell disease delivered two positive phase 3s in the same Friday-evening oral session. MajesTEC-9 showed the BCMAxCD3 bispecific teclistamab as monotherapy outperforming PVd/Kd standard-of-care in relapsed/refractory myeloma (1–3 prior lines): median PFS not reached vs 8.2 months (HR 0.29), with ≥CR of 65.9% vs 16.8% and an OS benefit (HR 0.60); simultaneously published in NEJM. Alongside it, SUCCESSOR-2 (LBA7506) reported the CELMoD mezigdomide added to carfilzomib/dexamethasone (MeziKd) cutting progression/death risk 52% vs Kd — median PFS 18.0 vs 8.3 months (HR 0.48), ORR 80.2% vs 53.4% — reinforcing the next-generation IMiD-successor class.

What it sets up

Friday framed two of the meeting's running threads. First, targeted therapy continues to displace chemotherapy at the front of the line in molecularly defined NSCLC, with WU-KONG28 closing one of the last remaining chemo-first niches. Second, off-the-shelf T-cell engagers and CELMoDs are moving earlier in myeloma, where MajesTEC-9 puts a single-agent bispecific ahead of multi-drug standards. The weekend's plenary-track LBAs across GU, GI, breast, sarcoma and lung were still embargoed at writing.

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