Mer­ck says Keytru­da im­proves sur­vival be­fore and af­ter lung can­cer surgery, awaits FDA de­ci­sion next week

Mer­ck an­nounced Tues­day that pa­tients with non-small cell lung can­cer who re­ceived Keytru­da be­fore and af­ter surgery lived longer than those who re­ceived a place­bo in a Phase III study.

The tri­al, known as KEYNOTE-671, en­rolled 797 pa­tients with ear­ly-stage non-small cell lung can­cer (NSCLC), ac­cord­ing to a pre­vi­ous NE­JM ar­ti­cle, and they ei­ther re­ceived Keytru­da plus chemother­a­py be­fore surgery — fol­lowed by Keytru­da — or place­bo plus chemother­a­py be­fore surgery fol­lowed by place­bo. Mer­ck had shared in June that the study showed the ad­di­tion of Keytru­da cut re­lapse risk by 42% com­pared to place­bo.

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