Merck Stops KEYTRUDA Trial After Failing To Meet Secondary Endpoint In Metastatic Lung Cancer

(RTTNews) - Merck (MRK), known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada, Thursday announced that it will stop the Phase 3 KEYLYNK-008 trial of KEYTRUDA for the treatment of metastatic squamous non-small cell lung cancer or NSCLC. The discontinuation is due to an interim analysis 3 that compared KEYTRUDA in combination with Chemotherapy failed to demonstrate improvement in overall survival, a primary endpoint. An independent Data Monitoring Committee has recommended to stop the trial.

Further, the other dual primary endpoint, progression-free survival, was not statistically significant in the second interim analysis, despite numerical improvement compared to the control arm.

KEYTRUDA is an anti-programmed death receptor-1 therapy, based on a humanized monoclonal antibody. It was tried in combination with maintenance LYNPARZA, a PARP inhibitor