Well. THAT Was Unexpected. And In Tumors That Express PD-L1, To Boot...

At the head (by way of caveats) -- these are patients with very stubborn cancers -- where the tumors have failed to respond to two prior courses of therapy. Still the news from Reuters this evening is that these were tumors that express the same protein against which Keytruda^® has shown significant results in other solid organs.

It may not be a vast market, for third line stomach cancers, here -- but this result will puzzle the researchers (I think).

This bit is from the great John Carroll:

. . . .For Merck, which has hundreds of trials running around Keytruda, the focus now shifts to KEYNOTE-062, a Phase III clinical trial studying Keytruda as a monotherapy or in combination with chemotherapy as first-line treatment for patients with PD-L1 positive advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer. There is also KEYNOTE-585, a Phase III trial studying Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in combination with chemotherapy in a neoadjuvant/adjuvant setting. . . .

So it is that we are back to the middle of the fairway -- with some disappointing Kenilworth/Merck news. Perhaps -- like many complicated bioscience matters -- we don't fully understand all the ways these proteins really interact, to work. Or occasionally -- don't.

Personally -- though the stock is off somewhat in the early NASDAQ after-market, I wouldn't expect the regular NYSE trading to be very much affected tomorrow -- as BMS, Roche/Genetech and others have seen puzzling (and spotty) disappointments in Phase III with their respective checkpoint inhibitor programs, as well. We shall see -- off to catch a train.

नमस्ते