Merck Makes It Official: SGP's Vicriviroc HIV R&D Program Terminated

Back in January of 2010, the handwriting was clearly on the wall -- given the failure of this legacy Schering-Plough candidate, vicriviroc (or SCH 417690), to at least equal existing HIV cocktail efficacies -- but yesterday Whitehouse Station apparently made it official, in the trade press: old SP's vicriviroc R&D program is over.

Thus we read this, from the AIDSmeds.com web-feature:

. . . .Merck announced July 14 that it is abandoning development of vicriviroc, the company’s CCR5-blocking HIV entry inhibitor candidate. In a statement, Merck explained: “This decision was based on the overall clinical data from Phase III trials in treatment-experienced patients and a recently completed Phase II trial in treatment-naive patients.”

Data from the Phase III treatment-experienced trial referenced in Merck’s statement were reported in February at the 17th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in San Francisco. In that study, vicriviroc, when combined with an optimized regimen of approved antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, failed to demonstrate its superiority to a regimen made up only of optimized drugs. . . .

This is the drug Ex-CEO Fred Hassan had predicted he'd file with FDA, for approval, in early 2010 -- and that would generate $500 million to $750 million in annual sales by 2013. Noted, at the time, by Peter Loftus -- in a January 2010 Wall Street Journal piece:

. . . .a Schering executive had predicted the company would file for regulatory approval of vicriviroc in 2009 or 2010, and that the drug would have peak annual sales of $500 million to $750 million. . . .

Not with a bang -- but a whimper.