BMO Capital Markets analyst Alex Arfaei upgraded shares of Merck & Co., Inc. from Market Perform to Outperform, boosting his price target by $10, to $72.Bristol said that its CheckMate-026 study in first-line NSCLC had not managed to meet its primary PFS endpoint, and BMO analysts see this as a positive event for Merck’s Keytruda. In fact, they anticipate “seismic commercial market share implications,” given that they expect NSCLC to be the biggest IO indication.Following this development, BMO now argues that Keytruda will probably dominate the first line (1L) NSCLC space, where patients are not only healthier, but also receive more aggressive treatment over a longer period of time.Source