You’ve probably never heard of it, and yet it’s one of the drugs that has changed the way cancer is treated for almost a decade: Keytruda. This treatment, which is an immunotherapy, is now prescribed in France in fourteen different cancers, from melanoma to triple negative breast cancer, one of those that are treated the least well.
And this list should grow, since this year again, Keytruda is at the heart of discussions at the World Cancer Congress, which takes place this first weekend in June, in Chicago, in the United States.
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This congress is one of the highlights of the fight against cancer: it is where the main advances in research are announced each year, the results of more than 5,000 studies carried out around the world. Among these, this year there are around forty studies which directly concern Keytruda.
Tested in lung, head and neck cancers, this drug, Professor Caroline Robert, of the Gustave-Roussy cancer center in Villejuif (Ile-de-France), was one of the first to test it there. ten years, on patients with skin cancer, melanoma, hitherto almost incurable.
“Significant responses were obtained in 30-40% of cases. This means that the tumor shrinks in size by more than 30%. We weren’t at all used to that and complete answers in 20% of cases. But the best part was that these answers were maintained over time. And it was the patients above all who made the revolution and told us: ‘Listen, now that I don’t have any more metastases, maybe we’ll stop the treatment.‘. We were not at all ready for that because we had never said we stop because everything is fine. Sounds a bit like healing, doesn’t it?” she smiled.
Since then, Keytruda has become a must in immunotherapy, the revolution of recent years in cancer research. Its principle is such that the drug will help, will strengthen the immune system, the body’s natural defense system. It is therefore the patient’s body itself that fights against the tumor.
However, the Keytruda does not work on all patients. But according to clinical trials, it is prescribed for more and more different cancers, 14 in France today: from melanoma to triple-negative breast cancer, one of those that are treated the least well, as well as those affecting the esophagus, the lung, the kidney, or even the endometrium. And it’s not over.
If it did not work until now on ovarian cancer, the team of Dr Alexandra Leary, from the Gustave-Roussy Institute, has found a new strategy, and will present its results at the Chicago congress: “If we tell ourselves that immunotherapy alone will not work, we will associate it with an antiangiogenic. The results are very encouraging, although they are still preliminary. We have to start somewhere and we need positive news for our patients with ovarian cancer which is very resistant.“
Today, 20,000 French patients are treated with Keytruda. For Clarisse Lhoste, president in France of the American laboratory MSD which markets it, these studies presented at the Chicago congress will have very short-term consequences.
“It allows patients to tell themselves that, possibly, in the next few months, these treatments will be available in France, for these very specific cancers.”
Clarisse Lhosteat franceinfo
At 5,200 euros per injection, the public price in France, the Keytruda is also a windfall for the American laboratory: 17 billion dollars in revenue last year. It is estimated that next year it will become the most profitable drug in the world.