Here’s a fun thought: what if the next blockbuster drug class isn’t for weight loss, but for cancer? And what if one small biotech company is sitting in the driver’s seat with a multi-year head start? That’s essentially the thesis from Stifel, which on Tuesday decided to start covering Summit Therapeutics (SMMT).

The analyst firm slapped a Buy rating on the stock and set a price target of $45. The central argument isn't just that Summit has a promising drug—it's that in a race where everyone is trying to build a better cancer treatment, Summit might be the only one with the keys to a car that actually works, and it's already miles down the road.

The car in this metaphor is a drug called ivonescimab. It’s what’s known as a PD-1xVEGF bispecific antibody, a fancy way of saying it’s designed to attack cancer, particularly lung cancer, by targeting two pathways at once. The big idea is that this dual approach could treat patients who don’t respond to existing PD-1 inhibitors, potentially opening up a huge new market.

Extensive Phase 3 Pipeline Strengthens Positioning

Summit isn’t just betting on a good idea; it’s running the clinical trials to prove it. Right now, there are 14 Phase 3 studies either ongoing or completed for ivonescimab. Ten of those are being run in China by Summit’s partner, Akeso, and four are global studies sponsored by Summit itself.

The regulatory wheels are already turning. Back in January, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) accepted Summit’s Biologics License Application (BLA). They’re seeking approval to use ivonescimab combined with chemotherapy for a specific type of advanced lung cancer in patients who have already tried another therapy. The FDA gave them a Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) goal action date of November 14, 2026. In plain English, that’s the day by which the FDA is supposed to make a decision.

Large Market Opportunity

So, how big could this get? According to Stifel analyst Dara Azar, the answer is "absolutely enormous." The firm estimates that this emerging class of PD-1xVEGF drugs, which Summit is leading, has a peak sales potential of around $200 billion. Let’s put that in perspective. That’s nearly three times the consensus estimate for sales of the entire threatened PD-1 drug class in fiscal 2027 (over $64 billion). It even exceeds current peak sales estimates for the wildly popular GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic and Wegovy), which are around $175 billion for 2035.

"We believe Ivonescimab (first-in-class PD-1xVEGF bispecific antibody) is positioned well to build on its lead in what could be a ~$200bn drug class, with growing strategic capital committed to fast-followers suggesting scarcity value in SMMT’s competitive positioning and data validation," Azar wrote.

Stifel breaks it down further. The four Phase 3 trials that Summit itself is sponsoring are targeting a market with a peak opportunity of around $70 billion. More importantly, Azar expects Summit to have a unique commercial lead of about three years. This head start could allow the company to quickly expand into treating first-line squamous non-small cell lung cancer, creating what the analyst calls "the first Keytruda-competitive PD-1xVEGF label." That could offer a roughly two-year window where Summit’s drug is the only one displacing Merck's blockbuster Keytruda, setting up a "strategic path to category dominance."

Stifel also pointed out a clever advantage in Summit’s setup. By having its partner Akeso run parallel trials in China, Summit gets more data and can learn from those results. This "second-mover learning" more than makes up for any extra volatility in news flow from having so many studies, and it lets Summit design more investable late-stage trials.

Competitive Positioning

Now, you might be thinking: a $200 billion market will attract every biotech and pharma giant on the planet. You’d be right. Stifel notes the field is "becoming increasingly crowded." But here’s where the scarcity value comes in. The analyst identified about 15 competing bispecific drugs in development. Nearly half of them don’t even have the same cooperative design as ivonescimab. More crucially, none of them have reached a comparable level of clinical maturity. In the drug development world, being years ahead with solid data is a massive moat.

Stifel dug into the data they have so far. They argue that ivonescimab has shown superior early disease control, with strong progression-free survival results. An interim read-out on overall survival also hinted at early death prevention compared to Keytruda. This, the firm says, provides a good "derisking" base for Summit’s own first-line lung cancer Phase 3 trials—meaning there’s solid evidence the drug works before they even finish the big studies.

SMMT Price Action: Sometimes the market takes a day to digest big analyst calls. Summit Therapeutics shares were actually down 1.56% at $18.92 at the time of publication on Wednesday, according to market data.

So, the story Stifel is telling is one of a small company with a potentially giant drug, a clear regulatory path, a multi-year head start, and clinical data that seems to back up the hype. In a race for a $200 billion prize, being first with the right data might just be everything.