The generally quite astute Investors' Business Daily has a good, but rather bland, 2010 review of Merck out, over this long holiday weekend in the States:
. . . .Merck will lose patent protection on two related hypertension drugs — Cozaar and Hyzaar — that together contribute about $3.5 billion to annual sales, or 15% of the company total.
Merck will not provide guidance until the second quarter of 2010. By then, it should know how much revenue it will lose to generic competition for those drugs. . . .
[Pipeline products at Merck include] Tredaptive, which is designed to increase good cholesterol while lowering bad. . . .
The Food and Drug Administration shocked Merck in 2008 by withholding approval of Tredaptive over concerns about the side effects of its key component, niacin. . . .
We shall see if Tredaptive ever clears FDA -- FDA had, in 2008, also rejected the name "Cordaptive" for this niacin-containing candidate -- for a host of obvious reasons (involving allegedly unsubstantiated associative powers, with other previously-FDA-approved blockbuster compounds).
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