Which pharmaceutical company developed the blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda?

The pharmaceutical company that developed the cancer drug Keytruda is Merck & Co.

Keytruda is the brand name for pembrolizumab, an antibody used in cancer immunotherapy. Merck & Co. developed the drug and received its first U.S. approval in 2014 for advanced melanoma. It works by blocking the PD-1 pathway, helping the immune system recognize and attack certain cancer cells.

Keytruda later gained approvals for many additional cancers and treatment settings, including lung cancer, kidney cancer, bladder cancer, head and neck cancer, and certain lymphomas. Its indications depend on factors such as cancer type, stage, biomarkers, and previous treatment, so it is not a universal treatment for every cancer.

Merck & Co. is known as MSD in markets outside the United States and Canada. It is separate from Germany’s Merck KGaA, which uses the Merck name in some countries and the EMD name in the United States and Canada. That similarly named company is a frequent source of confusion.