Merck KGaA (MRK)’s experimental drug L-
BLP25 missed the main goal of a trial in lung cancer patients, denting the
company’s ambitions of turning the medicine into a $1 billion-a-year product.
The drug, formerly known as Stimuvax,
failed to improve patient survival significantly in a late-stage study of more
than 1,500 patients, Darmstadt, Germany-based Merck said today in a statement.
Further research will focus on smaller groups of patients who showed positive
response to the drug, and results will be discussed with regulators in coming
months, it said.
Merck fell the most in seven months after
the latest setback in an 11-year effort to develop L-BLP25, a drug originated
by U.S. partner Oncothyreon Inc. (ONTY), into a marketable product. While Merck
is implying that there may be some hope for the vaccine, it’s still too early
to say that, and the company would probably have to conduct further trials,
Edouard Aubery, an analyst with Equinet AG, said in a phone interview today.
“This could have been a potential
blockbuster, but now it’s been taken off the table,” he said. Aubery had
estimated peak annual sales at 1 billion euros ($1.32 billion), with only a 25
percent probability that the vaccine would make it to market after Merck
signaled that L-BLP25 was a “high-risk project.”
Well, this
failure should be also expected due to Provenge
- the similar approach but against prostate cancer, is a mess. Well, who will fail next?
