Up­dat­ed: Mer­ck Q2 earn­ings pro­pelled by Keytru­da, Gar­dasil sales, but ex­pects 's­low­er' growth for HPV vac­cine

Mer­ck tout­ed bil­lion-dol­lar sales growth for its can­cer drug Keytru­da and HPV vac­cine Gar­dasil this quar­ter, and has high ex­pec­ta­tions for both as reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies have ex­pand­ed in­di­ca­tions. Yet the com­pa­ny couched fur­ther ex­pec­ta­tions for Gar­dasil, not­ing “slow­er” growth for the rest of 2023.

Keytru­da sales jumped 19% to $6.3 bil­lion be­cause of glob­al sales mo­men­tum in metasta­t­ic can­cers and in ear­ly-stage dis­ease such as in neoad­ju­vant/ad­ju­vant triple-neg­a­tive breast can­cer in the US. Fur­ther, sales for Gar­dasil soared 47% to $2.5 bil­lion ow­ing to glob­al de­mand specif­i­cal­ly in Chi­na, ac­cord­ing to its quar­ter­ly earn­ings re­port.

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