Checkpoint inhibitors approved for a few firms as immunotherapy for cancer are increasingly demonstrating their superiority in extending the lives of patients when given as first-line treatments.

In the news, Merck’s (MRK) anti-PD-1 therapy, pembrolizumab (Keytruda®) in combination with pemetrexed (Alimta®) and cisplatin or carboplatin, for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), met its dual primary endpoints of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS).

Based on an interim analysis conducted by the independent Data Monitoring Committee, treatment with Keytruda® in combination with . . .