#ES­MO17 ROUNDUP: Mer­ck’s da­ta on Keytru­da/chemo com­bo for lung can­cer takes ear­ly spot­light at ES­MO

MADRID — Mer­ck’s ab­stract $MRK on its big study of Keytru­da (pem­brolizum­ab) com­bined with chemo hit ear­ly at ES­MO, at­tract­ing con­sid­er­able at­ten­tion for the im­pres­sive pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival da­ta the phar­ma gi­ant post­ed as a front­line ther­a­py for non-small cell lung can­cer.

The scoop: The me­di­an PFS hit 19 months for the com­bo arm com­pared to 8.9 months for chemo alone. The 18-month over­all sur­vival rate was 70% with pem­bro + chemo and 56% with chemo. That was an easy win­ner at the FDA and the new mark to beat in the hottest com­pe­ti­tion in drug de­vel­op­ment.

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