Mer­ck­'s pause on an HIV pro­gram snow­balls as a Gilead-part­nered tri­al is shoved in­to lim­bo

Mer­ck’s an­nounce­ment last week that an ex­per­i­men­tal HIV com­bo ther­a­py re­sult­ed in a drop in im­mune cell counts, and its sub­se­quent de­ci­sion to halt a Phase II study, is start­ing to see a snow­ball ef­fect.

Late Tues­day af­ter­noon, the phar­ma gi­ant and part­ner Gilead said they are paus­ing en­roll­ment of a sep­a­rate study us­ing one of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al com­pounds from Mer­ck’s so­lo tri­al. The move was made “out of an abun­dance of cau­tion” af­ter Mer­ck stopped the oth­er study, the com­pa­nies said, al­low­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tors to con­sid­er po­ten­tial mod­i­fi­ca­tions.

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