Big pharma Merck (MRK) said Tuesday that it will stop a phase-three trial of cancer drug Keytruda for melanoma because the trial had already met its goals ahead of schedule. Merck’s stock rose about 1% in early trading. The trial, called Keynote-006, compared Keytruda head to head with Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (BMY) Yervoy, currently the standard of care for melanoma, in previously untreated patients. Merck said that the trial had met its endpoints
One lesson to draw from recent M&A in the pharma space: Superbug drugs are hot. Last year, Actavis (ACT) plunked down $675 million for Durata Therapeutics, whose drug Dalvance fights some of the nastiest specimens of the class known as gram-positive bacteria. And Merck (MRK) is in the midst of an $8.4 billion buyout of Cubist Pharmaceuticals, which last year got two new drugs OK’d for both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria that had
Biotech Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals (TTPH) jumped 16% to a new high Thursday and got a volley of price target increases after it reported positive trial results for its antibiotic late Wednesday. The trial found Tetraphase’s eravacycline to be “noninferior” to Merck’s (MRK) Invanz in treating complicated intra-abdominal infections, though the exact number will be reported at a scientific meeting next year. While noninferiority to an existing drug