As Widely Expected, Merck Gets Another Keytruda® Nod, From FDA, This Time In Blood Cancer...

As a counterweight to this rather downbeat story of last night, Kenilworth overnight announced an expected nod for Hodgkin's lymphoma -- handed down by FDA. BMS's Opdivo^® long ago received a similar indication approval, from FDA. [Legacy graphic at right; story here, from as early as December 2014.]

This is very good news, albeit in a not terribly high burden cancer. It is priced in to the NYSE trading, to be sure. Here's a bit, from PharmaTimes:

. . . .Approval of the anti-PD1 therapy, the first for the drug in a blood cancer, “reinforces the hope that immunotherapy will prove useful in a wide variety of cancers,” noted Dr Roger M. Perlmutter, president of Merck Research Laboratories. . . .

“For the patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma who are not cured with existing treatments, there are limited options, and treating their disease becomes more challenging,” added Dr Craig Moskowitz, clinical director, division of haematologic oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “This approval is an important step forward in treating these patients, who are generally young and have a particularly poor prognosis, and gives us the opportunity to help patients in their fight against this devastating disease. . . .”

Now you know. Big judicial branch constitutional events due up, later today, out of Hawaii -- as it all portends to reinvigorate, and return the nation -- to her nearly three centuries' long steady march, toward true pluralism. This will be the beginning of the end, for Trump's year of ugliness, on this score. Amendment, First -- means just what it says.

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