$20B-plus? Merck keeps racking up PhIII successes, scoring on triple negative breast cancer challenge as analysts drive up peak sales estimates
Just days after Bristol-Myers Squibb managed to surprise the analyst brigade with a Phase III flop for its PD-1 checkpoint Opdivo combined with chemo in lung cancer, Merck’s dominant team is back with another solid hit for a particularly tough-to-treat subgroup of breast cancer patients.
Merck’s Phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial connected on one of two primary endpoints, with their Keytruda/chemo combo eliminating all signs of triple-negative breast cancer — what’s called a pathological complete response — at a significantly higher rate than chemo alone, regardless of PD-L1 levels in the neo-adjuvant setting.
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