Did Mer­ck KGaA’s ag­ing at­aci­cept just fail a PhI­Ib lu­pus tri­al? Well, yes, but…

Mer­ck KGaA says that at­aci­cept, one of its top, long-run­ning drug prospects in the pipeline, failed a Phase IIb tri­al for lu­pus. That fail­ure fol­lows a 2009 flop for mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis, but Mer­ck KGaA is noth­ing if not per­sis­tent­ly sun­ny in the face of all set­backs.

The Ger­man Mer­ck, not to be con­fused with the U.S. ri­val by the same name, says the drug missed on the pri­ma­ry end­point: the pro­por­tion of pa­tients achiev­ing a clin­i­cal re­sponse as de­fined by a com­pos­ite SLE Re­spon­der In­dex (SRI)-4 at week 24.

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