A Phase III study testing Keytruda monotherapy in second-line esophageal cancer versus physician’s choice of chemotherapy shows a 31% reduction in risk of death for patients expressing PD-L1.

How much therapies should cost and how they should be reimbursed are questions that are expected to dominate in 2019, according to industry experts and participants surveyed by Scrip on their expectations for the coming year. This is the focus for the final installment of our three-part Scrip Asks series.

Five-year collaboration will analyze data from thousands of cancer patients to optimize immunotherapy treatment and develop PET imaging tracers to stratify clinical trial participants. Also, MD Anderson starts 2019 with three new agreements.

Denali will collaborate with Sirion in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Meanwhile, Lundbeck and Elevian unveil drug development partnerships with technology firms at the J.P. Morgan meeting.

At J.P. Morgan, AbbVie said the clinical struggles of Rova-T won’t alter its deal-making plans and leave it with plenty of solid tumor possibilities. The pharma took a $4bn write-off of the Stemcentrx deal on Jan. 4.

Bluebird licenses Inhibrx’s single-domain antibody technology for use in constructs for CAR-T therapy generation. Jazz pays $56m up front under an engineered exosome collaboration with Codiak.