by Sarah Ladd
Kentucky Lantern
January 5, 2026

If you smoke and want to quit, call the national quit line at 1-800-784-8669 to speak with a confidential coach. 

In what could be a “game changer” someday for Kentuckians with small cell lung cancer, the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center has treated the first patient in the country with a novel drug currently in the early stages of human trials. 

Markey is the first site to open a U.S. trial for ZG006 (Alveltamig), which has three “arms” (trispecific) to grab cancer cells and connect them to T cells, a type of white blood cells that are key in fighting pathogens and disease. 

It has the potential to give years of life back to small cell cancer patients, for whom other therapies have been ineffective in many ways — only about 40% of patients responded to tarlatamab, an immunotherapy with two “arms” (bispecific), for example. 

Dr. ​​Zhonglin Hao, a professor of medicine and the co-leader of Markey Cancer Center’s thoracic oncology program, said small cell lung cancer usually occurs in patients with a history of smoking, with the exception of a “very small proportion.” 

This population typically undergoes treatments that are on the market right now, but their cancer often comes back.  

“When they recur, that’s when we need more options,” Hao said. He described the three-arm therapeutic approach like this: “When they are dragged together, the lymphocytes can kill the cancer cell.” This can extend and save lives, he said. 

His trial will enroll three dozen patients over the next few years. To qualify, patients need to have extensive stage or limited stage small cell lung cancer and need to have experienced a recurrence of their cancer after receiving first line chemotherapy, Hao said. Patients in the trial receive the therapy via infusion in a hospital setting every two weeks.  

Hao’s team treated the first patient in the trial in late October. That patient “has tolerated it well without any appreciable side effects,” he said. 

If this trial proves “promising,” Hao said, he will launch a second tier trial and be able to “take a larger number of patients, in terms of hundreds of patients.”  

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death in Kentucky, despite its robust screening system. Kentucky has the second-highest rate of smoking in the nation — behind only West Virginia. 

In 2022, 17% of adult Kentuckians smoked, significantly higher than the national rate of 11%. The rate of new lung cancer cases, too, is higher than the national average — 84.1 per 100,000 people in Kentucky compared with nearly 52.8 per 100,000 nationally, according to the American Lung Association’s State of Lung Cancer. 

“Everybody will be tickled if we can make the bispecific, trispecific work for more people,” Hao said. “Our goal … is to cure them … despite having … that kind of disease.” 

​​Meanwhile, Hao said, patients should seek treatment as early as possible. 

“A lot of times geography is a hurdle, a barrier for referral,” he acknowledged. “But I want all our community and college to think and to suggest (to) patients: Come to UK early and in order to have that potentially curable therapy.” 

This new treatment may also be effective in treating brain metastases, which is when cancer cells migrate to the brain. This is common in small cell lung cancer, according to UK. The first U.S. patient treated with ZG006 at Markey had brain metastases, Hao said. 

“This disease has a very high chance of coming to the brain,” Hao said. “Once they come to the brain … it’s oftentimes too late to handle it, so we’ve got to think about just starting immunotherapy as soon as we (can).” 

Who should get screened for lung cancer? 

According to the American Lung Association, people should get screening for lung cancer if they are 50-80 years old, currently smoke or did smoke in the last 15 years and smoked a pack a day for 20 years or two packs a day for 10 years. People who fit that criteria are “high risk” for developing lung cancer, according to the association. 

People can also email the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services’ lung cancer screening program at LungCancer@ky.gov with questions about screening. 

Kentuckians who believe they qualify for the UK trial can contact the Markey Cancer Center. 

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