ESMO 2023 – duelling PD-1 drugs

With Keytruda’s newly approved US perioperative lung cancer label scooping the Keynote-671 trial’s ESMO late-breaker, Merck & Co can rest assured of staying one step ahead of its rival Bristol Myers Squibb. The latter’s corresponding Checkmate-77T study of Opdivo, the subject of a separate ESMO late-breaker unveiled last night, has shown a similar event-free survival benefit but, unlike Keynote-671, has yet to yield an OS result. In first-line urothelial bladder cancer, meanwhile, Opdivo plus chemo has shown a 27% reduction in risk of death versus chemo alone (p=0.0171) in Checkmate-901, a trial notable for having yielded a failure for its Opdivo plus Yervoy cohort last year, before being delayed and upsized. Keytruda monotherapy carries a first-line label here, but has been restricted to platinum-ineligible patients. Keytruda is separately awaiting an FDA decision by 23 January 2024 on its use in first-line cervical cancer as part of a chemoradiation combo, where an ESMO late-breaker shows a positive PFS hit in Keynote-A18. Finally, the underrated Perla trial in first-line NSCLC, where GSK’s Jemperli numerically beat Keytruda on remission and PFS, has now shown a similar result for OS; the trial’s small size precludes anything being said about statistical superiority, however.

Selected ESMO late-breakers on anti-PD-1 drugs

Source: ESMO.