#AS­CO19: Mer­ck’s PD-1 star Keytru­da il­lus­trates just how pow­er­ful it can be over 5 years — with plen­ty of room for im­prove­ment

CHICA­GO — Mer­ck took cen­ter stage at a mut­ed AS­CO Sat­ur­day morn­ing open­ing with its im­pres­sive 5-year up­date on what Keytru­da has done for lung can­cer pa­tients. The PD-1 more than quadru­pled the sur­vival rate of pa­tients with non-small cell lung can­cer who had not been pre­vi­ous­ly treat­ed with chemo — jump­ing from ear­li­er grim ex­pec­ta­tions of a 5.5% 5-year sur­vival rate to 23.2%.

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