Mer­ck’s lead­ing PhI­II BACE drug im­plodes in lat­est Alzheimer’s dis­as­ter

Scratch yet an­oth­er Phase III Alzheimer’s drug hope­ful.

Mer­ck $MRK an­nounced late Tues­day that it is shut­ter­ing its EPOCH tri­al for the BACE in­hibitor verube­ce­s­tat in mild-to-mod­er­ate Alzheimer’s af­ter the ex­ter­nal da­ta mon­i­tor­ing com­mit­tee con­clud­ed that the drug was a bust, with “vir­tu­al­ly” no chance of suc­cess. A sep­a­rate Phase III study in pro­dro­mal pa­tients, set to read out in two years, will con­tin­ue as in­ves­ti­ga­tors found no signs of safe­ty is­sues.

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