(CercleFinance.com) – Merck announced on Tuesday the termination of a phase III clinical trial evaluating an experimental treatment for head and neck cancer, which led to a sharp fall in its stock on the stock market.
The German group explains that it made its decision following an opinion from the independent monitoring committee of the study, which considered that it was unlikely that it would achieve its main objective, namely an increase in patient survival.
The trial focused on the combination of the small molecule and chemoradiotherapy in the treatment of unoperated and locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.
‘The failure of xevinapant clearly constitutes a disappointment in view of the results which were recorded in phase II’, reacted UBS analysts this morning.
‘For the Stifel teams, this failure will further strengthen the debate surrounding how to relaunch the group’s research and development (R&D) program, which penalizes the evolution of its stock price.
In a press release, Merck explains that it intends to focus on Erbitux, its current treatment for head and neck carcinoma, which is currently the subject of 200 clinical trials, including at least 15 in phase III.
The stock dropped 10% on Tuesday morning on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, showing the biggest drop in the DAX index which lost 1.4% at the same time.
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