Merck's Keytruda upends lung cancer market with latest survival win

Merck’s Keytruda already has the immuno-oncology lead in non-small cell lung cancer, and it’s making sure it stays that way. On Monday, it rolled out new monotherapy data that could significantly expand its patient pool. In a closely watched trial, the blockbuster topped chemo at improving overall survival among first-line patients with the disease. And that benefit extended across PD-L1-positive patients in the study, regardless of their level of PD-L1 expression.  The results follow an approval from late 2016 that cemented Keytruda’s place at the top of the I-O heap. NSCLC is the most lucrative market for the new therapies, and Keytruda was the first—and still is the only—PD-1/PD-L1 drug to win a monotherapy approval in the first-line space. That nod was for patients with PD-L1 levels of 50% or higher, though, meaning the new data could extend to many more patients; about 70% of all first-line patients are PD-L1 expressers, Bernstein analyst Tim Anderson wrote to clients.