One of the top selling drugs in the world, Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumal), is moving into new territory. The company just reported positive topline results from a phase III trial of KEYTRUDA in combination with chemotherapy for patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative gastric or gastroesophageal…

The first test for Microsatellite Instability High (MSI-H) status in solid tumors has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according a release from Foundation Medicine. FoundationOne CDx is the only FDA-approved companion diagnostic to help identify patients with MSI-H solid tumors, which may be appropriate for…

Pembrolizumab appears effective for aggressive endometrial (uterine) cancer, according to results from an international Phase II clinical trial led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center (OSUCCC). This immunotherapy is currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat several other forms of cancer.…

Promega said today it will develop its microsatellite instability (MSI) technology as an on-label, solid tumor companion diagnostic (CDx) to Merck’s blockbuster cancer immunotherapy Keytruda (pembrolizumab), through a global collaboration whose value was not disclosed. Promega’s MSI testing is designed to functionally measure the genomic accumulation of insertion or deletion…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA ) announced that it has granted priority review status for Merck’s anti-PD-1 drug Keytruda (pembrolizumab) for the treatment of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) as a monotherapy for patients who disease has not responded to two or more lines of prior therapy. Under…

The FDA has approved an additional use for Agilent Technologies’ Dako PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx assay, expanding its approvals to include another indication for the multi-indication Merck & Co.’s blockbuster anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) cancer immunotherapy Keytruda (pembrolizumab). Dako PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx is now the first FDA-approved…

Merck and Foundation Medicine have announced the companies will collaborate to develop a companion diagnostic (CDx) for use with the pharma giant’s Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy and the first approved immunotherapy for microsatellite instability (MSI) high or mismatch repair deficient solid tumors, Keytruda. According to Foundation Medicine, the diagnostic will be…

Newly discovered “stem-like CD4 T cells” play a pivotal role in anti-tumor immunity, according to preclinical work by researchers at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. The researchers say that activating these cells to fight tumors more effectively could improve immunotherapy.  Their findings are published in Nature and was…

Providing a detailed summary of the year in cancer research, the fourteenth edition of the annual American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Cancer Progress Report to Congress and the American public was released last week. The key finding is that cancer rates continue to climb, but death rates are shrinking.…

The success of cancer immunotherapy may hinge on T-cell receptor binding and signal strength, according to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists. They found that how tight a parental T-cell grabs a cancer protein determines if its daughter cells will be anti-cancer effectors or exhausted.  “We found that T-cell receptor…

Having recently finalized its blockbuster acquisition of antibody drug conjugate (ADC) pioneer Seagen, Pfizer is tidying up its oncology house and making a conspicuous shift towards more biologics. The oncology market  is expected to reach $500B by 2030, and Pfizer wants a big piece of it. Especially as the U.S. is making…

Already a popular topic, the launch of the large language model-based chatbot, ChatGPT, at the end of 2022 increased excitement around artificial intelligence (AI) in the media to fever pitch. This event triggered many heated debates about the technology and its numerous potential applications over the past 12 months. There…

For the first time in fifty years, a survival benefit has been demonstrated from an adjuvant therapy in patients with kidney cancer. The immunotherapy pembrolizumab (Merck’s Keytruda), given after nephrectomy, prolonged overall survival by 38% in patients with clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (ccRCC) at high risk for recurrence, according to the…

Researchers at Stanford University have identified a protein, known as ENPP1 that can act as an on/off switch controlling breast cancer cell’s ability to metastasize and resist immunotherapy. Despite the strides made in cancer immunotherapies, a significant hurdle remains: more than 80 percent of advanced breast cancers resist these promising…

Immunotherapy is proving a massive draw for investors and big pharma companies alike. These privately-owned immuno-oncology startups have bagged hefty funding rounds in the last two years. For decades, the mainstays of cancer treatment have been chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery. In the last decade, however, a new option has emerged:…