Mer­ck halts tri­al af­ter Keytru­da-Lyn­parza com­bo flunks PhI­II study in lung can­cer

Mer­ck is halt­ing a Phase III tri­al in non-small cell lung can­cer (NSCLC) af­ter its Keytru­da-Lyn­parza com­bo flunked one of the pri­ma­ry end­points in an in­ter­im da­ta analy­sis.

In the KEY­LYNK-008 tri­al, pa­tients first got Keytru­da (pem­brolizum­ab) and chemother­a­py, fol­lowed by Keytru­da and Lyn­parza as a first-line treat­ment. But the da­ta from the 857-pa­tient tri­al did not show an im­prove­ment in over­all sur­vival, one of the study’s pri­ma­ry end­points, com­pared to Keytru­da and chemo fol­lowed by Keytru­da plus a place­bo. The oth­er pri­ma­ry end­point, pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival, was al­so not sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant, though there was a “nu­mer­i­cal im­prove­ment” com­pared to the place­bo arm.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER