Opinion: Combination immunotherapy may have failed in the Incyte/Merck trial, but it’s here to stay

The failure of Incyte’s Phase 3 clinical trial of epacadostat combined with Keytruda, Merck’s breakthrough checkpoint inhibitor, for people newly diagnosed with melanoma was a big disappointment to the companies, the pharmaceutical industry, and patients. This negative trial prompted some to question whether combination immunotherapies have a future. Not me. I believe that immunotherapy and combination therapy are here to stay.

The questions we should be asking are what went wrong here (and with similar failures), and how do we fix it?

The answers lie with precision medicine and biomarkers.

Before the advent of precision medicine, doctors and clinical