Merck’s Top-Seller Cements Status in Hard-to-Treat Breast Cancer
- Keytruda helped women with triple-negative tumors live longer
- Doctors say extended five-year survival is a ‘huge advance’
In the US, Keytruda is approved for multiple tumor types, including triple-negative breast, lung and cervical cancers.
Photographer: Michael Lund/Merck Global Creative StudiosThis article is for subscribers only.
Merck & Co.’s best-selling drug Keytruda helped women with a hard-to-treat form of breast cancer live longer, according to the first study to show such a benefit in these patients.
After five years, 87% of patients with early-stage triple-negative tumors who took Keytruda with chemotherapy were alive, compared with 82% of patients given chemotherapy alone. The findings, presented Sunday at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in Barcelona, show the initial benefits seen with treatment persist.