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LONDON — AstraZeneca said on Monday that a new lung cancer treatment outperformed standard-of-care chemotherapy in a trial, but investors found the results less impressive than anticipated, sending company shares down in early trading. 

Based on an interim analysis of a Phase 3 trial, the company said that the drug, datopotamab deruxtecan, led to improvement in progression-free survival in patients non-small cell lung cancer, a primary endpoint of the study. There was also a positive early trend on overall survival, with Susan Galbraith, AstraZeneca’s oncology leader, describing the results as “compelling evidence for the potential role” that the drug could play for patients.

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But investors had been hoping for a clearer signal of benefit. Analysts noted that despite the success in progression-free survival, it was not described as a “clinically meaningful” improvement, which, as J.P. Morgan analysts wrote, “we believe the market would have liked to have seen.”

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