#AS­CO21: With Bris­tol My­ers set for its own big LAG-3 up­date at AS­CO, Mer­ck touts ear­ly suc­cess for a po­ten­tial com­peti­tor

Bris­tol My­ers Squibb is set to be the belle of the ball at this year’s AS­CO with a big late-stage read­out for its an­ti-LAG-3 an­ti­body re­latlimab in first-line melanoma. But there’s a mur­der­er’s row of chal­lengers in the ear­ly stages of de­vel­op­ment — and one, I/O gi­ant Mer­ck, thinks it could have a win­ner of its own.

A com­bi­na­tion of Mer­ck’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al LAG-3 check­point in­hibitor, dubbed faveze­limab, and Keytru­da post­ed an over­all re­sponse rate of 6.8% with 1 con­firmed re­sponse and 4 par­tial re­spons­es in pa­tients with mi­crosatel­lite-sta­ble metasta­t­ic col­orec­tal can­cer, ac­cord­ing to Phase I da­ta set to be pre­sent­ed at AS­CO in June.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER