New York, June 23, 2026, 14:03 EDT
- Pfizer shares slid 0.8% to $24.89 on Tuesday afternoon, trailing the broader health-care sector, which traded higher.
- The company’s experimental lung-cancer drug sigvotatug vedotin did not meet its main survival endpoint in a late-stage study.
- Pfizer’s second-quarter results call is next for investors on Aug. 4.
Pfizer Inc. shares fell on Tuesday. The company said a key lung cancer drug from its Seagen unit didn’t hit the main endpoint in a late-stage study. That’s another setback for Pfizer as it tries to spark growth again after its COVID-era products.
Pfizer shares slipped 0.8% to $24.89 in afternoon trading. The Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF gained 1.3%. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust dropped roughly 1%, and Pfizer lagged the health-care sector as the wider market also fell. Merck, which will have its Keytruda in Pfizer’s next trial of the drug, rose 2.9%.
Pfizer’s miss is a blow since sigvotatug vedotin was part of its $43 billion Seagen buy in 2023, which was aimed at boosting its cancer drugs as COVID sales drop and generics hit older products. Reuters said Pfizer shares have tumbled more than 50% since early 2023. The company is looking for new blockbusters and has guided to stronger growth in 2028.
Pfizer said its drug failed to deliver a statistically significant boost in overall survival compared with docetaxel chemotherapy in adults with advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer. This is a common lung cancer type. The medicine is an antibody-drug conjugate, or ADC, that targets tumor cells with a cancer drug payload.
Pfizer didn’t see a complete washout. The company said most patients in the study—about two-thirds—had only one prior therapy and showed a better trend for both overall survival and progression-free survival, or the period before the disease gets worse. Pfizer added that safety was manageable and matched earlier data.
Jeff Legos, chief oncology officer at Pfizer, said there’s “more work to be done” with previously treated advanced lung cancer. Legos said the second-line results and earlier combo data back Pfizer’s confidence in sigvotatug vedotin. He pointed to an ongoing Phase 3 trial testing the drug with pembrolizumab, Merck’s Keytruda, in first-line lung cancer. Business Wire
Pfizer’s drug showed a “clinically meaningful survival benefit” in second-line data, Solange Peters, chair of medical oncology and thoracic cancers clinic at Lausanne University Hospital, said. Peters said docetaxel should not be overlooked as a comparator and that the results support more study of the drug in earlier lines with immunotherapy. Business Wire
Pfizer’s readout arrived after the market watched for it. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla last year said the drug “could be a driver of growth later this decade,” according to STAT. Leerink analyst David Risinger in May called the data a “major oncology catalyst” in a note to investors. STAT
Some analysts aren’t ready to write off the program just yet. BioPharma Dive quoted Risinger, who said the drug “still has a chance” in the first-line trial, since that one compares it to Keytruda, not docetaxel. Trung Huynh at RBC Capital Markets said the failed readout was “unlikely to help confidence” in the Seagen deal and flagged the chance of another impairment charge. BioPharma Dive
Pfizer is still mainly about earnings and costs. The company beat Q1 profit and sales forecasts in May, kept its 2026 revenue target between $59.5 billion and $62.5 billion, and held to adjusted EPS guidance of $2.80 to $3.00. Management pointed to obesity drugs, oncology products, and a longer Vyndamax exclusivity period as possible growth drivers after 2028. RBC’s Huynh said Pfizer is “a catalyst story, not an earnings story.” Reuters
Pfizer will report its second-quarter numbers on Aug. 4, with a call for analysts set before 10 a.m. EDT. The call will go over figures in the company’s second-quarter 2026 performance report.
Uncertainty hangs over whether the subgroup finding will produce data convincing enough for regulators, doctors or investors. Pfizer flagged there was no clear link in the trial between IB6 expression and patient response, making a biomarker approach less likely, and said there are still questions about future clinical data, regulatory sign-off and commercial traction.
Pfizer shares barely moved. Still, the miss means the company needs better results from its other cancer and obesity drugs. The Keytruda combo trial with Merck looks more important for Pfizer than it did two days ago.
