Merck KGaA Lung-Cancer Drug Misses Trial’s Survival Goal
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Merck KGaA’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.