Arcus Biosciences, Gilead shares are down after sharing data about new lung cancer drug

Shares of Arcus Biosciences Inc.
RCUS,
-27.76%
were down 17.2% in premarket trading on Tuesday, the day after the company said the experimental treatment for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer that it’s developing with Gilead Sciences Inc.
GILD,
-1.78%
improved progression-free survival and overall response rate [ORR] in a Phase 2 clinical study. “The data clearly show that the program is viable, keeping hope alive for active building blocks within the large lung cancer space, but numerical ORR may be disappointing to some and it remains to be seen how much GILD/RCUS’s combo can truly differentiate vs. further-ahead regimens from more well-established players in the space,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams wrote in an investor note on Monday. Wall Street had expected Arcus’ stock to fall on the news, with SVB Securities analyst Daina Graybosch telling investors that “the investor bar had been steadily increasing coming into these data.” Gilead’s stock was also down, about 2.6%, on Tuesday morning. Arcus shares are down 24.6% this year, while the broader S&P 500
SPX,
+0.34%
has declined 19.9%.