F.D.A. Allows First Use of a Novel Cancer Drug (September 4, 2014, NY Times)
The drug, which Merck will sell under the name Keytruda, was approved for patients with advanced melanoma who have exhausted other therapies.
Cancer researchers have been almost giddy in the last couple of years about the potential of drugs like Keytruda, which seem to solve a century-old mystery of how cancerous cells manage to evade the body’s immune system.
The answer is that tumors activate brakes on the immune system, preventing it from attacking them. Keytruda is the first drug approved that inhibits the action of one of those brakes, a protein known as PD-1, or programmed death receptor 1.
At precent, Keytruda is only approved for patients who failed to respond to other melanoma drugs, such as Yervoy, and it costs ~ $12,500 per month or about $150,000 per year. Some patients will be eligible for clinical trials.