Merck & Co up on new Keytruda data

16 June 2016

Shares of US pharma giant Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) were up 2.4% in pre-market trading today, after the company released positive new data for its lung cancer drug Keytruda (pembrolizumab), showing it prolongs life.

Merck announced that the KEYNOTE-024 trial investigating the use of Keytruda, in patients with previously untreated advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors expressed high levels of PD-L1 (tumor proportion score of 50% or more), met its primary endpoint. In this trial, Keytruda was superior compared to chemotherapy for both the primary endpoint of progression-free survival (PFS), and the secondary endpoint of overall survival (OS).

DMC recommends stopping trial due to good results

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