#WCLC21: Mer­ck pokes Bris­tol My­ers in the eye with Keytru­da da­ta show­ing safe­ty red flags in Yer­voy com­bo tri­al

In the rank­ings of big-name face-offs in phar­ma, few top the fight be­tween Mer­ck’s I/O rock­et ship Keytru­da and Bris­tol My­ers Squibb’s Op­di­vo. Keytru­da has built a strong lead as the ear­ly-line ther­a­py of choice for most lung can­cer, and now it’s (in­di­rect­ly) shut­ting down BMS’s claims that its Op­di­vo-Yer­voy com­bo could sup­plant that.

In a head-to-head bat­tle be­tween so­lo Keytru­da and a com­bi­na­tion of Keytru­da and Bris­tol My­ers Squibb’s Yer­voy in treat­ing metasta­t­ic non-small cell lunger can­cer pa­tients, so­lo Keytru­da came out on top in terms of safe­ty with in­de­pen­dent re­view­ers call­ing off the Phase III study ear­ly, Mer­ck said Fri­day at the vir­tu­al World Con­gress on Lung Can­cer meet­ing.

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