On Thursday, pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., Inc. revealed that Health Canada has authorized the use of its drug, Keytruda, also known by its scientific name, pembrolizumab. This authorization permits its usage for treating adults suffering from advanced biliary tract carcinoma that can't be treated with surgery or has spread elsewhere. This approval comes with the condition that Keytruda is used in combination with a gemcitabine-based chemotherapy regimen.
Biliary tract carcinoma, a collection of rare and aggressive cancers, primarily invades the gallbladder and bile ducts. Merck substantiated this latest authorization on the results derived from their Phase 3 KEYNOTE-966 trial, which demonstrated a noteworthy enhancement in overall patient survival compared to those receiving only chemotherapy.
Keytruda first received approval in Canada back in 2015. Since then, it has been prescribed for a broad range of conditions. These include advanced renal cell carcinoma, bladder cancer, non-small cell lung carcinoma, primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma, classical Hodgkin lymphoma, colorectal cancer, endometrial carcinoma, cervical cancer, esophageal cancer, triple-negative breast cancer, melanoma, and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
