Get ready for more KRAS news

Earlier this year, Amgen made headlines after revealing that one of its drugs had showed unprecedented promise against one of cancer’s wiliest targets, albeit in a small study. This weekend, we’ll learn more.

At Europe’s World Conference on Lung Cancer, Amgen will present new data on AMG 510, the treatment that, last we heard, led to a 50% response rate in a particularly hard-to-treat group of patients.

The thing is, no one’s exactly sure what those new data will entail. Wall Street expects Amgen to have treated more patients for a longer period of time, but the company hasn’t provided specifics. As always, if the earlier response stabilize or even improve, that’s good. If they seem to wane over time, that’s less good. But we won’t know anything until Sunday.

The fascination with AMG 510 goes well beyond Amgen. The drug targets KRAS, a protein implicated in a host of cancers that has largely proved impervious to medicinal chemistry. That means AMG 510’s progress is seen as a barometer for other KRAS medicines, particularly one in development by a small company called Mirati Therapeutics, whose stock price is up more than 25% since Amgen’s first disclosure.