The immune checkpoint inhibitors have created a fast-running revolution in the world of cancer research. Now, there are 5 agents in the broader class of "PD-1/PD-L1" inhibitors, to accompany the CTLA-4 inhibitors. In 2015 and 2016, Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) was running roughshod through the field with nivolumab, capturing all kinds of first approvals.
But so far, 2017 belongs to pembrolizumab. Merck (NYSE:MRK) has channeled this agent into a wide variety of treatment settings, most recently bladder cancer. Heck, the prescribing information for pembrolizumab has a list of indications that is getting ridiculously long.
More to point, MRK has captured important segments of oncology. In addition, to being a competitor in second-line lung cancer, bladder cancer, and Hodgkin lymphoma, they have been given approval for first-line treatment of certain lung cancers (those with very high PD-L1 expression) and bladder cases where patients cannot receive chemotherapy.
