Mer­ck com­pletes a clin­i­cal tri­al Odyssey, fi­nal­ly bag­ging an FDA OK for C diff an­ti­body

Mer­ck had to en­dure de­lays and some scold­ing by ex­perts along the way, but the phar­ma gi­ant has picked up the FDA’s ap­proval to start mar­ket­ing be­zlo­tox­um­ab to pre­vent the re­cur­rence of Clostrid­i­um dif­fi­cile in­fec­tions. The drug will be sold as Zin­pla­va, with a launch planned for ear­ly 2017.

Picked up from Medarex just months be­fore the Bris­tol-My­ers’ buy­out, Mer­ck $MRK be­lieves that the IgG1/kap­pa an­ti­body can help pre­vent tens of thou­sands of new cas­es of C. diff each year among high-risk pa­tients.

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