Mer­ck­'s Keytru­da blazes a path in first-line cer­vi­cal can­cer, mak­ing good on drug­mak­er's push for ear­li­er pa­tients

In the years since I/O won­der drug Keytru­da’s ini­tial ap­proval, Mer­ck has struck an ag­gres­sive clin­i­cal tri­al pro­gram, which is now firm­ly fo­cused on ear­li­er lines of ther­a­py. The drug­mak­er has scored some suc­cess there so far, and now it’s earned one of its biggest wins yet.

Keytru­da plus chemother­a­py with or with­out back­ground Avastin sig­nif­i­cant­ly ex­tend­ed pa­tients’ lives over those dosed with a place­bo con­trol in first-line pa­tients with per­sis­tent, re­cur­rent or metasta­t­ic cer­vi­cal can­cer, ac­cord­ing to top-line da­ta from the Phase III KEYNOTE-826 study re­vealed Tues­day.

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