Merck KGaA Shares Fall After Announcement of Cancer-Drug Trial Interruption
21 January 2021 - 3:31AM
Dow Jones News
By Cecilia Butini
Shares in Merck KgaA fell on Wednesday after the company said it
would interrupt a clinical trial of its bifunctional immunotherapy
bintrafusp alfa, to be used in difficult-to-treat cancers.
At 1542 GMT, Merck KGaA traded 3.7% lower at EUR143.40.
The German pharmaceuticals and chemicals company said it had
decided to discontinue its INTR@PID Lung 037 clinical trial--which
recruited patients with stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer--as the
study is unlikely to meet its co-primary endpoint, specifically
progression-free survival. An Independent Data Monitoring Committee
recommended doing so on Jan. 19, Merck said. Progression-free
survival is understood as the amount of time during or after
treatment that a patient can live without the disease
progressing.
Bintrafusp alfa isn't approved for use anywhere in the world,
Merck said.
The company added that it remains committed to further
evaluating the drug and is moving forward with clinical trials to
test the compound in other types of cancers, such as biliary tract
cancer and cervical cancer, as part of its INTR@PID clinical trial
program.
Merck's management said during a conference call that the
trial's interruption won't affect the company's previously set
pipeline sales target of 2 billion euros ($2.43 billion) by
2022.
Write to Cecilia Butini at cecilia.butini@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 20, 2021 11:16 ET (16:16 GMT)
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