Pan­cre­at­ic can­cer study fail­ure crip­ples a Mer­ri­mack drug, forc­ing a coup de grâce and pipeline re­treat

Eigh­teen months af­ter Mer­ri­mack $MACK re­struc­tured, sell­ing off its one mar­ket­ed drug, switch­ing out CEOs and cir­cling the wag­ons around three key can­cer drugs, the biotech has been forced to scut­tle one of its pri­or­i­ty drug pro­grams.

MM-141 (is­ti­ra­tum­ab), has failed a Phase II pan­cre­at­ic can­cer study af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors paired it with nab-pa­cli­tax­el and gem­c­itabine against the stan­dard com­bo alone. There are no da­ta in the state­ment, but the com­pa­ny said the drug flat failed on the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary end­points, with noth­ing en­cour­ag­ing to re­port in the sub­group analy­sis.

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