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ASCO conference: Merck KGaA, Pfizer drug boosts survival for rare skin cancer

Merck KGaA and Pfizer Inc.'s immunotherapy Bavencio remained effective even after two years in some patients with a rare and aggressive type of skin cancer.

The companies reported data from a two-year follow-up to a phase 2 study, named Javelin Merkel 200, which evaluated the drug in 88 patients with Merkel cell carcinoma that had spread to other parts of the body.

Bavencio, or avelumab, targets programmed death ligand 1, or PD-L1, a protein found on the surface of cancer cells that helps them evade body's cancer-killing immune cells.

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The results presented at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting were unchanged from previous analyses reported at the one-year and 18-month marks, with 33% of patients seeing a shrinking of their tumors.

However, out of the 29 patients whose cancer responded to the treatment, 19 patients still had reduced tumors and 12 of these patients' cancer remained diminished for more than two years. The percentage of patients who survived while keeping the disease at bay — a measure known as the rate of progression-free survival — was 29% at 12 months, 29% at 18 months and 26% at 24 months.

Patients in the study survived for a median of 12.6 months. The overall survival rate after two years at 36%, with 50% at 12 months, 39% at 18 months.

There were side effects, with 67 patients, or about 76%, reporting a treatment related adverse event. There were no treatment-related deaths reported.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Bavencio as the first treatment for Merkel cell carcinoma in March 2017. The drug is also approved to treat certain bladder cancer patients.

Merck KGaA and Pfizer are jointly developing and commercializing Bavencio as part of a strategic alliance announced in November 2014. The alliance is focused on developing high-priority international clinical programs to investigate the drug as a standalone treatment.

The 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting is expected to bring together more than 32,000 professionals from all over the world, with more than 2,500 study abstracts to be presented on-site and an additional 3,350 abstracts to be published online.