News

Today, Merck announced that Keytruda has been granted breakthrough therapy designation for treating patients with epidermal growth factor receptor mutation-negative and anaplastic lymphoma kinase rearrangement-negative non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The FDA has granted a breakthrough therapy designation to pembrolizumab (Keytruda), an anti-PD-1 therapy, for the treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are EGFR mutation- or ALK rearrangement-negative and whose disease has progressed on or following platinum-based chemotherapy.

The first results from a phase I trial of gene therapy for exudative age-related macular degeneration using a subretinal injection suggest that the treatment is safe and well tolerated even in the elderly population and may eliminate the need for frequent reinjection with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor agents.

Much work is being done with Adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors for application in retinal gene therapy, with modifications being made to the capsid and genome of the vector to generate novel variants with unique transduction profiles, according to Shannon Boye, PhD.