Summit Therapeutics initiated with a Buy at Stifel

Stifel initiated coverage of Summit Therapeutics (SMMT) with a Buy rating and $8 price target. Summit is bringing ivonescimab into Phase 3 trials to compete with Merck’s (MRK) Keytruda in its main indication of lung cancer with two “shrewdly-chosen registrational studies,” the analyst tells investors. These include second-line EGFRm NSCLC, where Summit “can demonstrate success in a setting Keytruda never could,” as well as squamous NSCLC, where Keytruda outcomes “remain poor” and Summit can “construct an ivonescimab superiority thesis that leads to additional head-to-head phase 3s,” the analyst added.