European Commission approves Merck’s Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in combination with chemotherapy for first-line treatment of adults with metastatic squamous non-small cell lung cancer

Merck/MSD

14 March 2019 - European approval based on KEYNOTE-407 study results demonstrating significant improvement in overall survival with Keytruda in combination with chemotherapy compared to chemotherapy alone.

Merck today announced that the European Commission has approved Keytruda, the company’s anti-PD-1 therapy, in combination with carboplatin and either paclitaxel or nab-paclitaxel, for the first-line treatment of adults with metastatic squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). 

This approval is based on data from the Phase 3 KEYNOTE-407 trial, which demonstrated that Keytruda in combination with chemotherapy significantly improved overall survival in adults with metastatic squamous NSCLC regardless of PD-L1 tumour expression status, reducing the risk of death by 36 percent compared to chemotherapy alone (HR=0.64 [95% CI, 0.49-0.85]; p=0.0008).

Read Merck press release

Michael Wonder

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Michael Wonder

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Cancer , Outcome , Medicine , Europe