7 June 2018 - - Kenilworth, New Jersey-based global healthcare solutions provider Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside of the US and Canada, has released results from the KEYNOTE-042 Phase 3 study evaluating Keytruda, Merck's anti-programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) therapy, as monotherapy for the first-line treatment of locally advanced or metastatic nonsquamous or squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) without EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberrations, the company said.
In this study, Keytruda monotherapy resulted in significantly longer overall survival (OS) than platinum-based chemotherapy (carboplatin plus paclitaxel or carboplatin plus pemetrexed) in patients with a PD-L1 tumor proportion score (TPS) of ≥1%.
For patients in the Keytruda arm compared with chemotherapy, median OS was 20.0 vs. 12.2 months for patients with a TPS of ≥50%, 17.7 vs. 13.0 months for patients with a TPS of ≥20%, and 16.7 vs. 12.1 months for the overall study population of patients with a TPS of ≥1%.
Keytruda is an anti-PD-1 therapy that works by increasing the ability of the body's immune system to help detect and fight tumor cells. Keytruda is a humanized monoclonal antibody that blocks the interaction between PD-1 and its ligands, PD-L1 and PD-L2, thereby activating T lymphocytes which may affect both tumor cells and healthy cells.
Merck's immuno-oncology clinical research program currently involves more than 700 trials studying Keytruda across a wide variety of cancers and treatment settings. The Keytruda clinical program seeks to understand the role of Keytruda across cancers and the factors that may predict a patient's likelihood of benefitting from treatment with Keytruda, including exploring several different biomarkers.
Merck provides healthcare solutions worldwide through four segments: pharmaceutical, animal health, healthcare services, and alliances. The company serves drug wholesalers and retailers, hospitals, government agencies and entities, physicians, physician distributors, veterinarians, distributors, animal producers, and managed health care providers.