Merck Sharp and Dohme and GlaxoSmithKline agree cancer alliance

Merck Sharp and Dohme has announced a new alliance with GlaxoSmithKline that will assess the benefits of a new cancer therapy.

The companies are initiating a clinical trial to evaluate a combination of Merck Sharp and Dohme's investigational anti-PD-1 immunotherapy MK-3475 and GlaxoSmithKline's oral kinase inhibitor pazopanib for the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma.

Pazopanib is approved for use in the treatment of this disease in more than 80 countries and is sold under the name Votrient, while MK-3475 is a promising experimental agent that is being studied in 10 clinical trials spanning a wide range of cancer types.

Collaborations of this kind will aid Merck Sharp and Dohme's efforts to explore the full potential of MK-3475.

Iain Dukes, senior vice-president for licensing and external scientific affairs at Merck Research Laboratories, said: "We look forward to initiating further collaborations to investigate MK-3475 in combination with other anti-cancer agents across a range of tumour types."

This comes after the firm announced earlier this week that it is working with digital health specialist Ayogo to create a new diabetes management game.