Pfizer and Merck KGaA suffered another setback with immuno-oncology med Bavencio

Pfizer and Merck KGaA have suffered another setback with immuno-oncology med Bavencio—and this one’s raising some eyebrows.

Thursday, the companies revealed Bavencio (avelumab) had failed to outdo chemo at extending the lives of second-line lung cancer patients with PD-L1-positive tumors. And the way Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat sees it, there’s no “good reason” to explain the flop.