Keytru­da hit with sec­ond PhI­II set­back this year as Mer­ck­'s block­buster flops cer­tain head and neck tri­al

Viewed from afar, Mer­ck’s Keytru­da sto­ry has been rel­a­tive­ly un­scathed, but put un­der the mi­cro­scope in re­cent years, the PD-1 block­buster has racked up a se­ries of late-stage flops and had to with­draw its in­di­ca­tion in small cell lung can­cer af­ter fail­ing post-mar­ket­ing check­points.

The New Jer­sey Big Phar­ma has se­cured a few dozen on­col­o­gy in­di­ca­tions for the drug since the first green light in 2014, but bumps in the road do oc­cur even for a $17.2 bil­lion fran­chise, in­clud­ing two Phase III fails in the past four months. Af­ter a Phase III set­back in com­bi­na­tion with Lyn­parza in prostate can­cer back in March, Mer­ck has record­ed an­oth­er Phase III flop for the megablock­buster. This time, in a cer­tain form of head and neck can­cer.

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