CHICAGO (GenomeWeb) – A team led by the Institute of Cancer Research in the UK has used exome sequencing in an effort to tease out prostate cancer molecular features that are associated with a response to the checkpoint blockade immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Merck's Keytruda).

At the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting here this week, Johann de Bono, director of the ICR's drug development unit, shared data from the Keynote-199 study, a Phase II trial comparing pembrolizumab response in 258 metastatic prostate cancer cases with or without tumor expression of PD-L1.