Sales of Merck’s Keytruda rose 89.2 percent to $1.67 billion, edging past sales of its rival immunotherapy Opdivo made by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Merck raised its full-year profit forecast after beating Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit as sales of its blockbuster cancer drug nearly doubled.
Keytruda and Opdivo both have numerous approvals for a wide range of cancers. While both drugs work by triggering the immune system to attack tumors, Merck leads in lung cancer treatments, both alone and in combination with chemotherapy.
Read Merck’s financial results
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