When the experts Don't know16 Feb 2019 16:33
What they have got ... keytruda history
Pembrolizumab was invented by scientists Gregory Carven, Hans van Eenennaam and John Dulos at Organon after which they worked with Medical Research Council Technology (now known as LifeArc) starting in 2006 to humanize the antibody; Schering-Plough acquired Organon in 2007 and Merck & Co. acquired Schering-Plough two years later.[18] Carven, van Eenennaam and Dulos were recognized as Inventors of the Year by the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation in 2016.[19]
The development program for pembrolizumab was seen as high priority at Organon, but low at Schering and later Merck. In early 2010 Merck terminated development and began preparing to out-license it.[20] Later in 2010 scientists from Bristol Myers Squibb published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that their checkpoint inhibitor, ipilimumab (Yervoy) had shown strong promise in treating metastatic melanoma and that a second Bristol-Myers Squibb checkpoint inhibitor, nivolumab, (Opdivo) was also promising.[20] Merck at that time had little commitment or expertise in either oncology or immunotherapy, but understood the opportunity and reacted strongly, reactivating the program and filing its IND by the end of 2010.[20] As one example, Martin Huber was one of the few senior people at Merck with strong experience in lung cancer drug development, but had been promoted to senior management and was no longer involved in product development. He stepped down from his role to lead clinical development of pembrolizumab for lung cancer.[20]
So let's Cut through the Crap that Big Pharma BOD actually Know this market
"""""""""""" In early 2010 Merck terminated development and began preparing to out-license """""""""
just shows you how close Merck was to closing the program !!!! Ouch !!