Early filing for melanoma drug adds to Merck's renewed R&D hopes
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
After being criticized for much of the past year for having a stagnant research and development pipeline, investors on 13 January breathed new life into Merck's shares, which rose as high as 7.1% in morning trading, on the news the FDA had given the firm's experimental cardiovascular drug vorapaxar a positive review and the company had started the process of submitting a rolling biologics license application (BLA) for its investigational anti-PD-1 immunotherapy MK-3475, also known as lambrolizumab, in advanced melanoma.