To understand the molecular mechanism by which the HNK and AZD9291 combination augments induction of apoptosis, we examined its effects on the levels of Bim and Mcl‐1, two key molecules involved in mediating apoptosis induced by Osim in sensitive EGFR‐mutant NSCLC cells as we recently demonstrated (Shi et al., 2017). Here, EGFR is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.