Merck & Co's new immune system drug Keytruda has produced encouraging results in early tests against bladder cancer, according to a company-sponsored study, prompting the firm to prepare a clinical trial later this year.
Keytruda is the first in a new wave of immune-boosting medicines to be approved for treating melanomas in the United States, but it also has potential in a range of other cancers.
Bladder cancer is seen as a disease that is likely to be amenable to such drugs, which are designed to help the body's own immune system fend off cancer by blocking a protein known as Programmed Death receptor (PD-1), or a related target PD-L1.
Roche has a similar experimental drug that is currently in the lead in addressing the specific indication of bladder cancer.
In Merck's study involving 29 people with PD-L1 positive, advanced bladder cancer, seven patients -- or 24 percent -- saw their tumors shrink after being given Keytruda, Elizabeth Plimack of Philadelphia's Fox Chase Cancer Center told the European Society of Medical Oncology on Monday.
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