“The majority of patients with gastric cancer are diagnosed at an advanced stage, at which point they face a poor prognosis with a five-year survival rate of 6%,” said Dr. Zev A. Wainberg, professor of medicine at University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine and co-director of the UCLA GI Oncology Program. “This approval of pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy offers patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic HER2-negative gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer a new immunotherapy regimen that has demonstrated the potential to help these patients live longer.”