Shooting for a new standard on osteoarthritis, Merck KGaA outlines promising data for a potential game-changer
Merck KGaA’s pharma group is taking one more step in a long journey toward rehabbing its rep in the R&D field this weekend. Company execs turned up at the ACR scientific conference in San Diego to roll out a promising look at some key Phase II osteoarthritis data — which comes with a critical caveat.
The drug is sprifermin, which Merck Serono has had in its pipeline for the past 13 years after bagging it from ZymoGenetics, now a part of Bristol-Myers Squibb. In the first two-year efficacy assessment of the five-year study, researchers are now proudly pointing to a slight increase of cartilage in the knee, as opposed to the remorseless decline that leads to expensive knee replacement surgery.
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