New cancer injection could transform treatment
A radiotherapy machine. A drug, Keytruda, one of the world's most effective cancer medications, promises to transform treatment by delivering life-saving therapy through a simple injection into fatty tissue beneath the skin.
What you need to know:
- Unlike traditional intravenous Keytruda, which requires hospital visits and IV line insertion, the subcutaneous version can be administered quickly through a small needle injection similar to insulin shots. This reduces treatment time, eliminates the need for IV access, and significantly improves patient comfort.
Kenyan cancer patients who dread hospital visits due to fear of intravenous needles now have a reason for hope.
A drug, Keytruda, one of the world's most effective cancer medications, promises to transform treatment by delivering life-saving therapy through a simple injection into fatty tissue beneath the skin.
This is significant for melanoma patients whose cancer has metastasized beyond the original tumor site to lymph nodes, lungs, liver, brain, or bones, in cases that typically require aggressive, frequent treatment regimens.
Unlike traditional intravenous Keytruda, which requires hospital visits and IV line insertion, the subcutaneous version can be administered quickly through a small needle injection similar to insulin shots. This reduces treatment time, eliminates the need for IV access, and significantly improves patient comfort.
Keytruda (pembrolizumab) works by unleashing the body's immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells that have learned to hide from natural defenses. The drug blocks proteins that prevent immune cells from destroying tumors, essentially removing cancer's protective shield.
According to manufacturer Merck & Co, melanoma originates from melanocytes, the cells responsible for producing pigment in skin, hair, and eyes. While melanoma represents just a fraction of skin cancers, it's among the most dangerous due to its tendency to spread rapidly if undetected.
Official data from the Ministry of Health reveals the scope of the challenge of cancer cases in the country. In 2018, an estimated 178,560 melanoma cases were recorded in Kenya.
Of these, 87,290 were early-stage cases confined to the skin's top layer, while 91,270 had progressed to invasive melanoma penetrating deeper skin layers, the type most likely to spread throughout the body.
"Skin cancer is one of the most visible cancers. Regularly check your skin for any changes in moles, and if you spot one that is different, changing, itchy, or bleeding, seek advice from a dermatologist," the Ministry of Health emphasizes on its official platforms.
For patients like those facing metastatic melanoma, the subcutaneous option could mean the difference between consistent treatment and dangerous gaps in care caused by needle anxiety.
The innovation arrives as Kenya's cancer treatment infrastructure continues expanding, offering hope that cutting-edge therapies can become more accessible to patients who need them most.
“Melanoma is not as common as other types of skin cancer in the country but its incidence has been increasing over the years with the incidence in Kenya estimated to be around 1.5 to 2 cases per 100,000 population,” the health ministry adds, while observing that these figures may be underestimated due to limited data collection and reporting in some regions of the country.
Keytruda will allow much faster administration of the drug as opposed to the intravenous formulation (injection into the vein), providing patients with faster treatment at a medical centre and easing administration.
Keytruda is a prescription-only cancer drug, going for Sh 492,100 per 100mg/4ml.
The drug is popularly known for enabling former US President Jimmy Carter, who died last year, to live up to 100 years after he was in August 2014, diagnosed with metastatic melanoma (advanced or stage 4 cancer that occurs when melanoma cells spread from the original tumor to other parts of the body).
The former US President’s death came after a surgery revealed the cancer had spread to his liver and brain.
Before his death last year, after President Carter came clean on his melanoma diagnosis and was treated using Keytruda, he had been declared cancer-free in December 2015.
This remarkable outcome, experts said, demonstrated immunotherapy’s life-saving potential but also gave hope to countless others who battle cancer around the world.
It is after such immense success that a pivotal phase III study in patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, dubbed 3475A-D77 was rolled out seeking to develop a new subcutaneous formulation according to researchers at Merck.
“In two trial markers, the subcutaneous formulation actually beat the IV version, achieving a higher blood concentration after administration.
The researchers at the just-concluded European Lung Cancer Congress (ELCC) 2025 highlighted that patients also spent about half the time in the clinic receiving the treatment as compared to the IV version, according to the readout.
“Adverse effects occurred at about the same rate, 47 per cent, for both formulations, with a death rate related to the treatment of 3.6% for the subcutaneous drug and 2.4 per cent for the IV version,” they said in their peer-reviewed findings published in ‘Annals of Oncology’.
Based on these results, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted a biologics license application (BLA) for the new formulation across all of Keytruda’s previously approved solid tumor indications.
The agency set a decision date of September 23, 2025. The new development is also the latest attempt in Merck’s quest to extend the patent on Keytruda.
The current patent for the drug, which brought in $29 billion last year, is set to expire in 2028. But why is the new development very important?
This, the experts say, is a major win for what they call target immunotherapy.
Dr Andrew Odhiambo, a consultant physician & medical oncologist, says that these are cancer drugs that target specific genes or proteins involved in cancer cell growth and survival.
“These drugs may also modify the environment in which cancer cells thrive, making their survival shorter. For instance, they can deny cancer cells the blood supply to grow.
Most of them come in tablet/oral formulation, though some may still be in intravenous (IV) form. The majority are useful in advanced or stage 4 cancers to improve one’s survival,” the expert highlights on his official website.
“They are not typically designed to cure cancer but keep it suppressed for as long as possible,” he points out while further highlighting that not all cancers benefit from targeted therapy.
He adds that many cancers still depend largely on chemotherapy for optimal survival, although targeted therapy is gaining a lot of traction lately.
“It takes many years of research before a drug is approved for cancer treatment. For many cancers like colon cancer, lung, kidney, bladder, skin, breast, and pancreas, we have several approved targeted drugs,” Dr Odhiambo adds.
