--- --- May 08, 2025 # Suresh Ramalingam A breakthrough against lung cancer by [Sandeep Ravindran](/author/sandeep-ravindran/) ## Sandeep Ravindran  Courtesy Ramalingam Last summer, Dr. Suresh Ramalingam, executive director of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, received a standing ovation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. What stirred the audience were the striking results he had just presented for a drug that could become the primary treatment for a type of advanced lung cancer. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, with close to 1.8 million people dying from it each year. Even as treatment options have improved, they have been largely ineffective for patients with mutations in a protein called epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). “Early on in my career, we identified this EGFR pathway as one therapeutic opportunity to improve cancer outcomes,” says Ramalingam. In [the recent study](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2402614 "undefined"), Ramalingam found that people with Stage III lung cancer who had EGFR mutations had an 84% lower risk of cancer progression or death when they took a drug called osimertinib after chemoradiation. “There was a significant night-and-day difference in outcomes, and that has already resulted in \[the Sept. 2024\] FDA approval of osimertinib for Stage III disease” in people with these mutations whose cancers could not be surgically removed, says Ramalingam. “To see a trial with this level of impact was truly a pleasant surprise for us,” he says. TIME100 Health: Suresh Ramalingam ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-health-2025/7279582/suresh-ramalingam/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-health-2025/7279582/suresh-ramalingam/"},"headline":"Suresh Ramalingam","datePublished":"2025-05-08T11:04:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:48:14.034Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-health-2025/7279582/suresh-ramalingam/","keywords":["TIME100Health2025","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt58e853034b053da3/6998c65193610c49dbc2f99f/Suresh-Ramalingam-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sandeep Ravindran","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sandeep-ravindran/"}],"creator":"Sandeep Ravindran","articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt58e853034b053da3/6998c65193610c49dbc2f99f/Suresh-Ramalingam-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time100health2025/","name":"TIME100Health2025"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-health-2025/7279582/suresh-ramalingam/","name":"Suresh Ramalingam"}}]}] ```