'The Top Line': What Merck trial flops at ESMO may portend, lessons from COVID for monkeypox test EUAs and more

Medical conferences often are platforms to showcase new clinical trophies. But that wasn't the case for Merck at this year’s European Society for Medical Oncology meeting. The Big Pharma presented a series of trial flops for its megablockbuster cancer immunotherapy Keytruda. We'll discuss whether the Merck checkpoint inhibitor has reached a bottleneck or if it was just bad luck. 

Also under discussion is the monkeypox test emergency use authorization. Because monkeypox continues to spread in the U.S. and worldwide, the FDA granted its first EUA for a diagnostic test. This regulatory path was also used for COVID-19 tests. But the FDA learned a few lessons from the pandemic and hopes the new guidelines will help avoid the problems seen then.  

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The Top Line is produced by senior multimedia producer Teresa Carey with managing editor Querida Anderson and senior editors Annalee Armstrong, Ben Adams, Conor Hale and Eric Sagonowsky. The sound engineer is Caleb Hodgson. The stories are by all our “Fierce” journalists. Like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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