• Keytruda is known generically as pembrolizuma and it targets certain gene activity. Carter's cancer is terminal, but the hope is that it can help Carter's immune system fight off the cancer for a little while longer while keeping a decent quality of life -- while there are some side effects, it's nothing like chemotherapy.
  • The FDA only gave Keytruda approval last year. Carter seems to like it, telling reporters that after he took it he had the "best night sleep [he's had] in many years."
  • Keytruda was developed and commercialized by Merck. From the website: "Keytruda is a prescription medicine to treat a kind of skin cancer called melanoma. KEYTRUDA may be used when your melanoma has spread or cannot be removed by surgery (advanced melanoma), and after you have tried a medicine called ipilimumab and it did not work or is no longer working, and if your tumor has an abnormal “BRAF” gene, and you also have tried a different medicine called a BRAF inhibitor, and it did not work or is no longer working."

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