New da­ta point to how Keytru­da changed lung can­cer treat­ment; A Hous­ton biotech earns ear­ly back­ers in quest to turn 'cold' tu­mors 'hot'

Keytru­da be­came stan­dard-of-care in non-small cell lung can­cer in part thanks to clin­i­cal tri­als that ul­ti­mate­ly showed it could boost sur­vival to over two years  — or near­ly twice as long as chemother­a­py. But how long do pa­tients ac­tu­al­ly live in the re­al world?

A new analy­sis of 230,000 Medicare pa­tients, pub­lished Fri­day in JA­MA, found that the an­swer was far less: 11.9 months. That’s less, they found, than pa­tients who re­ceived ei­ther chemother­a­py or chemother­a­py in com­bi­na­tion with Keytru­da, who col­lec­tive­ly lived for about 12.9 months.

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