An­oth­er quar­ter, an­oth­er Keytru­da win for Mer­ck

Mer­ck post­ed yet an­oth­er strong quar­ter on the back of its can­cer ther­a­py Keytru­da, in what’s be­com­ing al­most a rou­tine event for the New Jer­sey drug­mak­er.

“New quar­ter, same Mer­ck out­per­for­mance,” BMO Cap­i­tal Mar­kets an­a­lyst Evan David Seiger­man wrote in a note to clients af­ter Mer­ck re­leased first-quar­ter re­sults Thurs­day.

Among US drug­mak­ers, Mer­ck has been one of the bet­ter per­form­ers in the last half-decade, even as it pre­pares for Keytru­da’s key patent ex­piry in 2028. It has in­vest­ed in ar­eas be­yond on­col­o­gy through its $10.8 bil­lion pur­chase of im­munol­o­gy drug de­vel­op­er Prometheus last year. But a key part of the post-Keytru­da strat­e­gy is more Keytru­da, through a sub­cu­ta­neous ver­sion of the drug that’s ex­pect­ed to ex­tend the fran­chise.

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