Merck says its PD-1 drug Keytruda met its goals in a...

Merck  says its PD-1 drug Keytruda met its goals in a head-to-head study with Bristol-Myers Squibb's ($BMY) Yervoy (ipilimumab), showing that Keytruda was superior
BMY must be looking urgently for a drug combination to improve the outcome of its product. VLA has a trial underway combining Yervoy and Cavatak.   If the combination is better (strongly supported by pre clinical data) then I expect BMY will quickly do a deal. Once the combination is shown to work, I expect all the companies with new drugs will be interested in licencing Cavatak in a range of cancers. I think it will be a big deal flow.
So while it would be positive if Amgen receive FDA approval for monotherapy, it has no impact on what I believe is the VLA strategy of positioning Cavatak as a combination treatment.