With hep C fran­chis­es lan­guish­ing, Mer­ck’s MK-3682 goes from block­buster to bomb

A lit­tle less than three years af­ter ac­quir­ing the he­pati­tis C drug MK-3682 (up­ri­fos­bu­vir) in its $3.85 bil­lion buy­out of Idenix, Mer­ck’s prospects in the field have cooled dra­mat­i­cal­ly, and its once great hopes for the drug have been re­duced to near­ly noth­ing.

Af­ter the mar­ket closed on Thurs­day, Mer­ck says it is tak­ing a pre-tax $2.9 bil­lion “in­tan­gi­ble as­set im­pair­ment charge” for the drug and re­duc­ing it on the books to a mar­gin­al $240 mil­lion — and even that may not last long.

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