Gilead Announces Clinical Trial Collaborations With Merck - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD) announced Monday that it has entered into two clinical trial collaboration and supply agreements with Merck & Co Inc.(MRK), known as MSD outside the U.S. and Canada.

Under the collaboration, the companies will evaluate the combination of Gilead's Trop-2 targeting antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan-hziy) and Merck's anti-PD-1 therapy KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) in first-line metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Merck will also sponsor a global Phase 3 clinical trial of Trodelvy in combination with KEYTRUDA as a first-line treatment for patients with metastatic NSCLC. Everest Medicines will also participate in the global Phase 3 study in Asia through its existing collaboration agreement with Gilead.

Additionally, the companies recently established an agreement whereby Gilead will sponsor a Phase 2 signal-seeking study evaluating combinations that include pembrolizumab in first-line NSCLC.

NSCLC is the most common type of lung cancer and accounts for up to 85% of cases. It is an aggressive disease with poor prognosis. There is a major unmet need for patients with only 25% of patients surviving beyond five years.

Trodelvy is an antibody-drug conjugate that specifically targets Trop-2 expressing cells to enable local delivery of a cytotoxic payload that selectively kills the targeted cells. The combination of Trodelvy with an immune-stimulating agent such as KEYTRUDA could provide a new treatment option for a broader set of patients with first-line metastatic NSCLC.

These agreements follow a collaboration, established in October 2021, to investigate Trodelvy in combination with KEYTRUDA as first-line treatment for people with locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).