New treatment option now available in Canada for newly diagnosed patients with advanced lung cancer

Merck/MSD

18 March 2019 - Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in combination with pemetrexed and platinum chemotherapy reduced the risk of death by half compared to chemotherapy alone.

Merck today announced that Health Canada has expanded the label for Keytruda (pembrolizumab), Merck's anti-PD-1 therapy, to include approval for the treatment of metastatic non-squamous NSCLC, in combination with pemetrexed and platinum chemotherapy, in adults with no EGFR or ALK genomic tumour aberrations, and no prior systemic chemotherapy treatment for metastatic NSCLC.

In the pivotal, Phase 3 KEYNOTE-189 trial of patients regardless of PD-L1 tumour expression status, Keytruda, in combination with pemetrexed and platinum chemotherapy, demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival (OS) (HR=0.49 [95% CI, 0.38-0.64]; p<0.00001), reducing the risk of death by half compared to chemotherapy alone. The study also showed a significant improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) compared to chemotherapy alone (HR=0.52 [95% CI, 0.43-0.64]; p<0.00001).

Read Merck press release

Michael Wonder

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Michael Wonder

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Cancer , Outcome , Medicine , Canada