Positive results from Keynote 024 trial for Keytruda for NSCLC.- Merck Inc.

Merck announced the presentation of updated overall survival (OS) findings, a secondary endpoint, from the phase III KEYNOTE-024 trial evaluating Keytruda (pembrolizumab), the company’s anti-PD-1 therapy, as a first-line monotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors express high levels of PD-L1 (tumor proportion score [TPS] of 50 percent or more). The study included patients with squamous and nonsquamous NSCLC with no EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberrations.

Findings – which are based on more than two years of follow-up – will be presented in an oral presentation at the 18th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer in Yokohama, Japan (Abstract OA 17.06). With an additional six months of available data, results continue to show a reduction in the risk of death by 37 percent for Keytruda compared to chemotherapy based on more than two years of median follow-up (HR, 0.63 [95% CI, 0.47–0.86]; nominal p=0.002). Additionally, Keytruda increased OS by more than one year, more than double the OS for chemotherapy (30.0 months [95% CI, 18.3–not reached]; 14.2 months [95% CI, 9.8–19.0], respectively).