Mer­ck­'s Keytru­da wins US ap­proval for wider lung can­cer pop­u­la­tion; CymaBay breaks out pos­i­tive da­ta from on­go­ing PBC study

→ Days af­ter Mer­ck’s en­trenched flag­ship Keytru­da im­munother­a­py scored a key lung can­cer ap­proval in Chi­na, the drug­mak­er has ex­pand­ed its lung can­cer mar­ket at home by win­ning ap­proval for as a monother­a­py for the first-line treat­ment of pa­tients with stage III NSCLC, who are not can­di­dates for sur­gi­cal re­sec­tion or de­fin­i­tive chemora­di­a­tion, as well as pa­tients with metasta­t­ic NSCLC, whose tu­mors ex­press PD-L1, with no EGFR or ALK ge­nom­ic tu­mor aber­ra­tions. “This ex­pand­ed first-line in­di­ca­tion now makes Keytru­da monother­a­py an op­tion for more pa­tients with non-small cell lung can­cer, in­clud­ing those for whom com­bi­na­tion ther­a­py may not be ap­pro­pri­ate,” said Mer­ck’s $MRK VP of on­col­o­gy clin­i­cal re­search, Jonathan Cheng, in a state­ment on Thurs­day.

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