US pharmaceutical company Merck & Co Inc (NYSE:MRK), known as MSD outside the US and Canada, and biotechnology company Moderna Inc (Nasdaq:MRNA) announced on Monday that they have initiated the INTerpath-009 Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating the investigational individualised neoantigen therapy, V940 (mRNA-4157), in combination with KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.

This trial will assess the combination therapy's impact on disease-free survival, overall survival and other key measures in patients who have received neoadjuvant KEYTRUDA and chemotherapy.

A global, randomised, double-blind Phase 3 trial, INTerpath-009 will evaluate 680 patients with resected (R0 or R1) Stage II, IIIA, IIIB (N2) NSCLC who did not achieve a pathological complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant KEYTRUDA plus platinum-based chemotherapy.