# First-Line Sacituzumab Govitecan Plus Pembrolizumab in Metastatic NSCLC: PD-L1 TPS Less Than 50% and More Than or Equal to 50% Cohorts of the EVOKE-02 Study

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-nct05186974-j-thorac-oncol-2026/  
OnCo record `paper-nct05186974-j-thorac-oncol-2026` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Published report from the EVOKE-02 trial registered as NCT05186974, in Journal of Thoracic Oncology (2026), chosen as the most cited paper whose own text cites the registry id.

## Summary

Introduction: Sacituzumab govitecan (SG) is a Trop-2-directed antibody-drug conjugate previously studied in patients with pretreated metastatic NSCLC (mNSCLC). Here, we report the results of EVOKE-02 (NCT05186974), a global, open-label, multicohort phase 2 study of SG plus pembrolizumab as first-line treatment in patients with mNSCLC.

Methods: Adult patients without prior systemic mNSCLC treatment, and no actionable genomic alterations, received SG 10 mg/kg intravenously on days 1 and 8 plus pembrolizumab 200 mg intravenously on day 1 of 21-day cycles. The primary end point was objective response rate (ORR) per independent review committee, and secondary end points included progression-free survival (PFS) and safety.

Results: at data cutoff (June 3, 2024), there were 30 patients with programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) tumor proportion score (TPS) more than or equal to 50% (cohort A) and 62 patients with PD-L1 TPS less than 50% (cohort B). ORR (95% confidence interval) was 66.7% (47.2-82.7) for cohort A and 29.0% (18.2-41.9) for cohort B. Median (95% confidence interval) PFS was 13.1 (6.7-not reached) months for cohort A and 7.0 (4.2-12.9) months for cohort B. Trop-2 expression did not correlate with greater clinical efficacy (PFS, ORR) from treatment with SG plus pembrolizumab. Grade 3 or greater treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) occurred in 70 patients (76.1%); the most common TEAE was neutropenia (17.4%). TEAEs leading to discontinuation of any study drug occurred in 25 patients (27.2%).

Conclusions: SG plus pembrolizumab demonstrated activity as treatment for mNSCLC, especially in patients with PD-L1 TPS more than or equal to 50%. AEs were manageable and consistent with the known safety profile of each individual agent.

Indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 41173143 (DOI 10.1016/j.jtho.2025.10.016). Its abstract cites the registry id NCT05186974, which is how it was matched to this trial; no figure has been checked by an editor.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-22
- Tags: europepmc-ingest
- Journal: Journal of Thoracic Oncology
- Year: 2026
- DOI: 10.1016/j.jtho.2025.10.016
- Authors: Reck M, Patel JD, Gray JE, et al.
- What it means: This is the paper Europe PMC returns for registry id NCT05186974 with the most citations, so it is the natural first reading for anyone following the EVOKE-02 trial. Read the abstract above alongside the trial page and the registry entry; the record was linked automatically and its figures have not been checked by hand.
- Caveats: Matched to the trial by the registry id cited in the Europe PMC record; the summary reproduces the record's abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper.

## Sources

- J Thorac Oncol 2026: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtho.2025.10.016
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41173143/
- Europe PMC: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/41173143
- ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05186974: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05186974

## Connected records

- trials: [Study of Sacituzumab Govitecan Combinations in First-line Treatment of Participants With Advanced or Metastatic Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC)](https://onco.cc/trials/nct05186974/)
- journals: [Journal of Thoracic Oncology](https://onco.cc/journals/journal-of-thoracic-oncology/)

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