Merck KGaA's lung cancer drugs show promise in early-stage trials
Germany's Merck KGaA said two of its experimental oncology drugs showed early signs of promise in certain lung cancer patients, potentially helping the company's efforts to find drug-industry partners to share further development costs. The family-controlled company on Wednesday released some initial data from early- and mid-stage trials that will be presented in more detail at the annual conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago in early June. A bifunctional fusion protein known as M7824, which combines two immunotherapy mechanism, led to tumour shrinkage in 40.7 percent of patients in a small study group suffering from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).