US pharma giant - and recent Tip of the Year - Merck (US: MRK) saw its shares rise on 11 January following a positive update on lead cancer drug Keytruda. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted the group's marketing application seeking approval for the use of Keytruda in combination with chemotherapy to treat a type of lung cancer.
Although Keytruda is already approved for use in a number of other types of cancer, this is the first application for the drug in combination with an already approved therapy. Approval by the FDA on 10 May would help to boost Keytruda sales. In further news, BioLine RX - another US drug development company - announced that it too would be trialing Keytruda alongside one of its own drugs for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
