Keytruda steps towards first-line lung cancer dominance

The US regulator has agreed to expand the monotherapy label for Merck & Co’s (NYSE: MRK) Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in lung cancer.

Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy has been given the green light for marketing against stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), in the first-line setting.

The approval applies to certain people whose tumors express PD-L1, who are not candidates for surgical resection or definitive chemoradiation, and have no EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberrations.