Af­ter an epic bat­tle of block­busters, Mer­ck leapfrogs Bris­tol-My­ers to take the lead on PD-1/L1 mar­ket

Mer­ck did it.

In one of the most in­tense com­mer­cial and re­search de­vel­op­ment ri­val­ries in bio­phar­ma his­to­ry, Mer­ck’s Keytru­da has edged ahead of Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb’s Op­di­vo for the first time since the show­down got start­ed near­ly 4 years ago.

This morn­ing Mer­ck re­port­ed that Keytru­da earned $1.66 bil­lion in Q2 — an 89% in­crease over the same pe­ri­od just a year ago. Yes­ter­day, Bris­tol-My­ers re­port­ed that their check­point Op­di­vo scored $1.62 bil­lion — up 36% — for the same pe­ri­od.

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