China Medical News

Less than a year after securing its first Chinese approval, in previously treated metastatic melanoma patients, Merck & Co.’s Keytruda has leapt ahead of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo and nabbed a green light in newly diagnosed non-small cell lung cancer.

The new approval is for the combination of Keytruda, Eli Lilly’s Alimta and platinum chemo as first-line treatment of patients with NSCLC without EGFR or ALK mutations. And it’s based on the foreign Keynote-189 study, which showed the regimen could cut the risk of death by half.

With that, Keytruda has become the first PD-1/L1 to expand its Chinese label, and has outrun Opdivo—which was approved last June in previously treated NSCLC as the country’s first immuno-oncology agent—into the first-line setting. (Source: FiercePharma)