Merck just filed its second quarter SEC Form 10-Q, afterhours tonight -- dumping a boat-load of information into a Friday night. No worries -- we'll rummage through it all, over the weekend, and have much more (including some "free cash flow" trend/analysis) -- but this much IMMEDIATELY leaps out: Merck has ended yet another pipeline drug it bought from legacy Schering-Plough, in the bust-up (wasn't "unmatched pipeline" the main selling point we heard throughout 2009?). In any event, this would-be cardiovascular drug wasn't particularly efficacious, apparently -- see page 50 of the SEC filing:
. . . .In the third quarter of 2010, the Company terminated the internal clinical development program for acadesine, an adenosine regulating agent for ischemia reperfusion injury in patients undergoing heart bypass surgery. Merck has decided to follow the recommendation of the independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (“DSMB”) to stop enrollment of the RED-CABG trial based upon the DSMB’s review of a pre-specified interim futility analysis which showed a low probability of the trial meeting its primary efficacy endpoint. . . .
So ends another Ex-CEO Hassan shine-job -- but for Merck shareholders, this is actually a bit of good news.
It shows that at least Whitehouse Station has the courage to stop -- rather than spend into the high hundreds of millions of dollars -- all to effectively chase its own tail, as old Schering-Plough (under Hassan) so often did. [By the way, this "Red Cabbage" trial was the same one repeatedly touted -- by Dr. Enrico Veltri (yes, that Enrico Veltri!), on the 2008 and 2009 R&D Days. He was very-silently "ghosted" on November 3, 2009.]
2 comments:
not sure if anyone has ever cared to look into the number of trials actually started in the last year and a half or so of S-P before the announcmenet of the 'reverse merger', but it would make an interesting analysis.
Indeed it would -- I may just do that -- on the next rainy Saturday afternoon, here.
Thanks for the idea!
Namaste
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