Merck Sharp and Dohme calls early end to successful melanoma drug trial

Merck Sharp and Dohme has announced that a new clinical study assessing its drug Keytruda as a treatment for melanoma will be brought to an early end.

The pivotal phase III study KEYNOTE-006, which compared Keytruda to an established therapy in the first-line treatment of patients with advanced melanoma, has met its two primary endpoints of progression-free survival and overall survival.

As such, it will be stopped early, based on the recommendation of the study’s independent data monitoring committee. The drug is the first anti-PD-1 therapy to demonstrate a survival advantage compared to the standard of care for the first-line treatment of advanced melanoma.

Data from this study will be presented in the opening plenary session at next month's American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting.

Dr Roger Perlmutter, president of Merck Research Laboratories, said: "We greatly appreciate the efforts of our investigators and their patients in this important study, and we look forward to the presentation of overall survival data from KEYNOTE-006 at the AACR annual meeting."

Also known as pembrolizumab, Keytruda became the first treatment to be accepted under the UK's new Early Access to Medicines Scheme earlier this month.