Shares of the large pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK Quick QuoteMRK - Free Report) were climbing higher Thursday on news that the company’s late-stage lung cancer treatment showed positive results and outperformed traditional chemotherapy. As of around 3 PM ET MRK was up to $57.61, a jump of 2.71% on the day.

Results came back from the Keynote-024 trial where the drug Keytruda was used as the sole treatment of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer. Though Merck & Co. didn’t release any numbers, the company said that the Keynote-024 trial was stopped because it already proved Keytruda’s ability to lengthen progression-free survival and overall survival compared to standard chemotherapy treatments.

The trial studied only patients which had tumors that showed high expression of PD-L1, the ligand that Keytruda is meant to treat through targeting the PD-1 protein. More details regarding the trial are expected to be released at an undisclosed future time.

As it stands the Keytruda drug is only approved to treat relapsed cases of late-stage lung cancer, but the company said it plans to file for a label expansion as soon as it can. The expansion could be a major positive for the company in the company in the coming months, but only time will tell if they are able to get approval from regulators.

Merck & Co. is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock, but any further positive trials or label expansion of the Keytruda drug could change that in the future.

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