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Doctors are celebrating the “unprecedented” trial results of a cancer treatment that’s managed to eliminate tumors in some patients who have proven resistant to other treatments.
The injection, called amivantamab and developed by Johnson & Johnson, was tested in an 11-nation clinical trial in which it was administered to patients whose cancer had either spread or returned after other treatments failed.
Tumors shrank in more than a third of patients, with notable changes recorded only weeks after it was administered. In 15 patients, doctors reported that the injection had eradicated their tumors.
“These are unprecedentedly strong responses in patients whose disease has become resistant to both chemotherapy and immunotherapy,” Kevin Harrington, professor in biological cancer therapies at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, told The Guardian. “This is a group of patients for whom treatment options are extremely limited, so seeing this level of benefit is very striking.”
The results of the trial will be presented on Sunday during the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago.
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According to Harrington, the drug “has the potential to benefit many thousands of patients each year.”
The trial included 102 patients with head and neck cancer, which is the sixth most common form of cancer. In 43 patients, tumors either shrunk or completely disappeared. Of that group, 28 saw their tumors shrink and 15 had their tumors disappear completely.
In addition to head and neck cancer, the drug has reportedly had similar results in patients with certain types of lung cancer.
Amivantamab works by targeting a protein that helps tumors grow and by blocking a pathway used by cancer cells to resist treatment. It additionally points the immune system at the tumor, activating the body’s natural defenses to assist in treatment.
According to the researchers, patients receiving the drug lived for a median of 12.5 months after starting treatment despite having a cancer with poor prognoses after treatments stopped working.
Carl Walsh, 56, who was diagnosed with tongue cancer in May 2024 and joined the trial in July 2025, told The Guardian that he has been “very pleased with the progress” since he began using the drug.
“I now feel able to live a normal life. Before starting the trial, I struggled to speak properly and found eating difficult because of the swelling and pain,” he told the paper.
The drug is now being tested in approximately 60 clinical trials which are primarily focusing on its ability to combat lung cancer, but it is also being used to treat colorectal, brain, and gastric cancers.
