Pembrolizumab

Merck & Co.s partner Kelun-Biotech said Monday the combination of its TROP2-targeting antibody-drug conjugate, given with Keytruda, has the potential to be a new first-line treatment for people with lung cancer, following the success of a late-stage study.According to Kelun, a trial titled OptiTROP-Lung05 found the combination of its ADC and Keytruda led to an improvement in progression-free survival compared to Keytruda alone as first-line treatment in people with non-small cell lung cancer, or NSCLC, thats positive for a protein called PD-L1. The combination also demonstrated a positive trend in overall survival.Kelun plans to discuss these results with Chinese regulators for a potential approval application.The late-stage trial is the first pairing of an ADC and an immune checkpoint inhibitor to achieve its primary endpoint in the first-line treatment of NSCLC, Kelun said. The ADC known as sacituzumab tirumotecan or sac-TMT goes after a protein expressed in multiple cancers. This TROP2 protein is also the target of Gilead Sciences Trodelvy and AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyos Datroway.Keluns drug is already approved for two NSCLC indications as well as triple-negative breast cancer in China. Merck holds rights to the TROP2-targeting drug outside of China, including in the U.S.Merck first partnered with Kelun in 2022, gaining rights to multiple early-stage ADCs, including sac-TMT, as part of a broader effort by the pharmaceutical giant to develop new cancer drugs that could offset eroding revenue from Keytruda, which is set to lose patent protection this decade.Merck is currently testing the candidate in 15 global Phase 3 clinical trials across six tumor types, including endometrial, breast and lung cancers. Recently, Blackstone Life Sciences agreed to fuel the development of the experimental candidate with a $700 million funding deal in exchange for royalties on potential sales of sac-TMT across all approved indications.While the Phase 3 study of sac-TMT was conducted in China, the results raised investor optimism around the drugs future.Overall, we're bullish on sac-TMT and think sac-TMT could end up being what investors originally thought Datroway could be for AstraZeneca, a $10 billion plus opportunity and be a narrative shift for Merck, Jefferies analyst Akash Tewari wrote in a note to clients Monday.Leerink Partners analyst Daina Graybosch wrote last month, following presentations at the European Society for Medical Oncology, that sac-TMT may have the best-in-class Trop2 ADC profile, showing the most consistently robust clinical benefit across tumor types and settings.Meanwhile, other TROP2-targeting ADCs are being evaluated for lung cancers. Researchers are testing Datroway in combination with chemotherapy and Imfinzi as a first-line treatment for NSCLC.Additionally, Gilead is investigating Trodelvy plus Keytruda in the first-line setting for those with PD-L1-positive NSCLC. '

Is it a coincidence the most valuable pharmaceutical company by market capitalization is also the one with the CEO rated highest by employees? Maybe not.Eli Lilly, which just became the first trillion-dollar pharmaceutical company, also holds another distinction: CEO David Ricks is ranked No. 1 among big pharma with regard to employee approval, according to reviews on Glassdoor.Employee approval of a CEO correlates with company performance, studies show, with top leaders boosting worker efficiency, improving recruitment and lifting customer perception.That certainly seems to be the case for Lilly, where 89% of roughly 6,100 reviewers on Glassdoor approve of the job Ricks is doing in the captains chair.Lillys financial performance matches that high approval rating thanks to blockbuster GLP-1 drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, which together raked in more than $10 billion in the third quarter to top the pharmas sales charts. Lilly also raised full-year forecasts and touts a deep pipeline of closely watched research projects.With Ricks at the peak, how do other top pharma CEOs measure up?PharmaVoice searched the top 20 pharma companies by 2024 revenue on Glassdoor and sorted by the percentage of employees who approved of the current CEO. U.S.-based Merck & Co. and Germanys Merck KGaA were not included due to insufficient or unreliable Glassdoor data.Among the bottom-ranked CEOs, just over half of employees approved of the job they were doing, including Pfizers Albert Bourla at 52%, CSLs Paul McKenzie at 53% and Bayers Bill Anderson at 58%Bristol Myers Squibbs Chris Boerner and Takeda Pharmaceuticals Christophe Weber fared a little better, with 65% and 73% approval, respectively.The top-ranked CEOs, on the other hand, scored much higher, each with no fewer than 87% of employees approving of their performance. Heres a look at the top CEOs by approval rating.Eli LillyCEO: David RicksEmployee approval: 89%Recently named CEO of the year by Chief Executive magazine, David Ricks led Lilly to a string of wins this year, topped off with the tirzepatide franchise usurping Mercks Keytruda as the worlds best-selling drug and overtaking Novo Nordisk's Ozempic in the GLP-1 revenue race.Ricks, who also nabbed a spot on this years Time100 Health list, joined Novos CEO earlier this month to strike a deal with the White House to lower U.S. prices for GLP-1 drugs. Its part of a larger price-cutting and access strategy, which also includes a recent deal with Walmart to expand to direct-to-consumer pricing for Zepbound through LillyDirect, offering the drug for pick-up at the retail giants pharmacies.Looking to the future, Ricks says hes all-in on artificial intelligence. At least one or two AIs, are running during every meeting, according to the CEO. That enthusiasm is reflected across the whole of the company, with Lilly announcing plans to work with chip-maker Nvidia to build the most powerful supercomputer owned and operated by a pharmaceutical company that could power an “AI factory.Roche GroupCEO: Thomas SchineckerEmployee approval: 87%Thomas Schinecker started the year by taking over as president of the global pharma trade body, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations.Hes also remained an impactful leader at Roche, inking bigger-ticket deals like the $3.5 billion acquisition of 89bio and subsidiary Genentechs $2.1 billion pact with Orionis Biosciences to discover small-molecule glue medicines for cancer. Schinecker plans to keep up that business development clip, saying were not done during a third-quarter earnings call last month.Schinecker is rolling the dice elsewhere, too. Roche is betting big on its obesity pipeline, aiming to compete with Lilly and Novo, despite scrapping one of the early-stage assets from its $2.7 billion acquisition of Carmot Therapeutics.The company is also in talks with the U.S. government to lower drug costs, with Schinecker floating the possibility of selling prescriptions directly to consumers.Boehringer IngelheimCEO: Hubertus von BaumbachEmployee approval: 87%When Hubertus von Baumbach in 2015 took the reins of Boehringer Ingelheim, the largest private drugmaker in the world, he became the first CEO from the companys founding family in 25 years. Von Baumbach, a great-grandson of Boehringer Ingelheims founder, stepped into the role after serving as finance chief.In the decade since, von Baumbach has led the company in deals ranging from a multibillion-dollar business swap with Sanofi to an agreement with Google Quantum AI for R&D.Boehringer also scored two FDA approvals in the second half of 2025. Its Jascayd approval marked the first new idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis treatment in more than a decade, and the company entered the oncology market with the kinase inhibitor Hernexeos.In addition to the CEO role, von Baumbach was recently appointed as chairman of the companys shareholders committee.NovartisCEO: Vas NarasimhanEmployee approval: 87%Another Time100 Health honoree, Vas Narasimhan recently boasted of the companys firepower to ink big deals like a $12 billion acquisition of Avidity Biosciences announced in October, thanks to Novartis free cash flow approaching $20 billion a year. He also said Novartis wont step away from the M&A table in the quest for the next great asset.Avidity marked Novartis largest deal since Narasimhan took the helm as CEO in 2018. Still, the company faced criticism for the acquisition, with investors raising questions about the effectiveness of the biotechs antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates.Novartis also faces pressure to strike deals with the White House to lower drug prices, similar to those brokered by Pfizer, Lilly, AstraZeneca and Novo. However, while Narasimhan acknowledged the drugmaker is engaged in ongoing talks with the Trump administration, he said such deals dont get to the root of the problem.I think the pharma industrys view is that the proposed negotiations or proposed actions are not going to address the underlying issues here, he said during a recent earnings call.AstraZenecaCEO: Pascal SoriotEmployee approval: 87%After Pascal Soriot struck a deal with the White House to lower drug prices and avoid tariffs, Reuters called the AstraZeneca CEO something of a Trump whisperer who went on a charm offensive to reach the agreement, including meeting at a royal banquet in the U.K., where the company is based.Just a week after Trump won the 2024 election, AstraZeneca said it would invest $3.5 billion in R&D and manufacturing in the U.S. Then in July, the company said it would pour an additional $50 billion into the U.S. by 2030.Todays announcement underpins our belief in Americas innovation in biopharmaceuticals and our commitment to the millions of patients who need our medicines in America and globally, Soriot said in a statement.Soriots dealings with the U.S. are in stark contrast to how its approaching affairs in its home country, saying that if the U.K.s NHS doesnt spend more on new drugs, and if things continue to deteriorate the way they do, the nation could someday only be able to afford cheap generics. '