No tumor type has been remade by precision medicine as thoroughly as lung cancer, and ASCO 2026 — 296 lung-cancer studies — shows the next chapter being written by driver mutation. The radar's most useful read is not the total; it is the decomposition. Sort the lung program by molecular axis and a sharp pattern emerges: the rising agents are all biomarker-defined or next-generation antibodies, and one heavily hyped class is going the wrong way.
The rising agents are all precision plays
We pulled the lung-relevant study counts for the agents defining each molecular axis. The picture is remarkably consistent.
Three things jump out. EGFR keeps deepening: osimertinib remains the backbone (63 studies) and amivantamab — the EGFR×MET bispecific — is the fastest-growing EGFR agent (11 → 24). Perioperative immunotherapy is a major growth pocket: durvalumab's rise to 112 reflects the migration of checkpoint blockade out of metastatic disease and into neoadjuvant and adjuvant, curative-intent settings — one of the largest commercial shifts in thoracic oncology. And the PD-1×VEGF bispecific ivonescimab (2 → 9 → 20) carries the meeting's most-watched lung readout, HARMONi-6 (covered in our China deep-dive).
The axis-by-axis map
| Driver / axis | Lead agents at ASCO 2026 | Radar trend |
|---|---|---|
| EGFR | osimertinib (63), amivantamab (24, EGFR×MET bispecific) | ▲ Rising |
| Perioperative IO | durvalumab (112) — neoadjuvant/adjuvant migration | ▲ Rising |
| DLL3 (SCLC) | tarlatamab (37) — see our SCLC deep-dive | ▲ Surging |
| PD-1 × VEGF | ivonescimab (20) — HARMONi-6 plenary OS win | ▲ Surging |
| HER2 | zongertinib (9, selective TKI), T-DXd | ▲ Emerging |
| KRAS G12C | sotorasib (9), adagrasib (8), divarasib (2) | ▼ Declining |
HER2 arrives in lung — as a TKI and an ADC
HER2-mutant NSCLC, long an orphan within an orphan, now has dedicated agents. Zongertinib — a HER2-selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor (Boehringer Ingelheim's Beamion program) — grew from 2 to 9 studies and is appearing in combination studies, while trastuzumab deruxtecan provides the ADC option. A target that barely registered two years ago is now a defined, contested lane.
The KRAS exception
The conspicuous outlier is KRAS G12C. After enormous early excitement, the inhibitors are receding in the program: sotorasib fell from 15 to 9 studies, the broader KRAS class slipped from 20 to 15. The biology remains important, but single-agent KRAS G12C inhibition has underwhelmed against expectations, and the field's attention is consolidating into combinations and next-generation (including pan-KRAS and G12D) approaches rather than expanding. For anyone tracking hype-versus-delivery, KRAS is the cautionary tale of the precision era — and the radar caught the inflection.
The commercialization read
For BD teams: the lung white space is now in the narrow but underserved drivers (HER2, MET, RET, and emerging targets) and in the perioperative migration, where the addressable population is far larger than the metastatic setting. For competitive strategy: ivonescimab's plenary win puts every PD-1/PD-L1 lung franchise on notice — the next competitive battle in first-line NSCLC is whether a second specificity (VEGF) becomes table stakes. For investors: KRAS G12C is a live lesson — study momentum diverging from a class's early narrative is exactly the kind of signal worth heeding before a crowded field's economics reset.
Explore the underlying data
Every number above is live and pivotable on the Knitify ASCO Radar — analyze the 7,222 studies in the ASCO 2026 program by drug, indication, sponsor, or trial-in-progress status, and compare year over year against 2025 and 2024. Filter the board to lung cancer or a specific driver mutation to reproduce every count in this article. The radar links to each study on the official ASCO program; it does not reproduce copyrighted text.
Methodology & scope: figures in this article are structured signals the Knitify ASCO Radar derives from the publicly released ASCO 2026 scientific program (7,222 studies presented; 6,511 in 2025; 5,885 in 2024) — counting how many studies reference a given drug, indication, or modality class. They quantify research attention and momentum, not clinical efficacy or market share. Named trial results are quoted from public company press releases, the ASCO press program, and peer-reviewed journals (cited below). The radar does not reproduce any copyrighted text — it links to each study on the official ASCO program. This is editorial commentary on public data — not investment, legal, regulatory, or medical advice.