Merck Blood Thinner Studies Halted in Select Patients
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A study of Merck & Co.’s vorapaxar, an anticlotting pill that had potential for $5 billion in annual sales, was halted and a second trial narrowed in scope, limiting the drug’s possible use.
All participants will stop taking the drug in the trial of 13,000 patients who began the medicine at the time of a heart attack or chest pain, researchers at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston and the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina, said today. A second study, of 26,500 patients with prior heart problems, will be stopped for the 25 percent who had suffered a stroke.