Mer­ck can’t prove its Alzheimer’s drug works, yet, but it did just ex­plain why it’s spend­ing a for­tune on PhI­II

In­ves­ti­ga­tors for Mer­ck $MRK have very care­ful­ly out­lined all the ear­ly-stage hu­man and an­i­mal da­ta they can muster for their Alzheimer’s drug verube­ce­s­tat. Now in an am­bi­tious Phase III due to read out in mid-2017, tests proved that the BACE drug can suc­cess­ful­ly tar­get one of the key bio­mark­ers for the dis­ease.

They just don’t have any con­vinc­ing da­ta to show whether it will ac­tu­al­ly make a dif­fer­ence in pa­tients’ cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, or im­prove their abil­i­ty to func­tion in their dai­ly lives.

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