December 6 (Reuters) – Merck fell on the stock market on Wednesday morning after the announcement of the clinical failure in phase III of evobrutinib, its experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis.
On the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, around 09:20 GMT, Merck shares plunged 13.58%, the biggest drop in the Dax (+0.05%) and the Stoxx 600 (+0.21%).
The German laboratory clarified that evobrutinib had not achieved its main objective in a late-phase trial, namely reducing the annualized rate of relapse compared to Sanofi’s aubagio in patients with multiple sclerosis. recurrent (SPR).
JPMorgan estimates the impact of the absence of marketing of evobrutinib on Merck’s turnover at 1% in 2025 and 3% in 2028-2030.
The American investment bank also predicts that Merck may have to book a provision in the fourth quarter with the end of clinical trials, which could reduce its Ebitda for 2023 by around 2%, to around 5.8 billion euros.
HSBC, for its part, lowered its recommendation on Merck from “buy” to “hold”, with a reduction in the price target of 8%, to 170 euros. (Report by Paolo Laudani, French version by Claude Chendjou, edited by Kate Entringer)
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