ESMO 2026 closing thoughts: A practice-changing innovation among a sea of promising data

Citi's closing thoughts on ESMO 2026. This year's meeting was highly anticipated, led by Moderna/Merck's contentious intismeran melanoma data. Citi believes the regimen is approvable and could find meaningful use in a subset of adjuvant melanoma patients, but the results do not support the oncology-platform expectations embedded in Moderna's valuation, and the polite yet measured reception suggests physicians do not view intismeran as a game changer. Amgen offered the clearest counterpoint, with Imdelltra delivering truly practice-changing small-cell lung cancer data and receiving an emphatic reception. Elsewhere, Merck's sac-TMT results validated a potentially important post-Keytruda growth platform, Pfizer's update modestly improved confidence in its oncology pipeline, Jazz's Ziihera data reinforced its long-term growth opportunity, BioNTech's pumitamig results expanded the asset's potential breadth and depth, and Lilly demonstrated progress across its early-stage, non-cardiometaboli