Keytruda clocks up 23 uses in 13 different cancer types in Japan

Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) has announced that its anti-PD-1 therapy Keytruda (pembrolizumab) has received four new approvals from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW).

The first addition to its Japanese label is an approval, alongside chemotherapy as neoadjuvant treatment, and then continued as monotherapy as adjuvant treatment after surgery, in hormone receptor-negative and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative breast cancer at high risk of recurrence.

Merck’s blockbuster drug has also been approved as monotherapy for the adjuvant treatment of certain patients with renal cell carcinoma at increased risk of recurrence following nephrectomy, or following nephrectomy and resection of metastatic lesions.