Merck & Co., Inc. develops, manufactures, and markets innovative products to improve human and animal health. Merck ships confidential documents regarding its late-stage clinical drug trials to physicians around the country during the trials' course. Merck relies on the physicians to protect the documents' confidentiality after delivery. Merck evaluated Microsoft...
Merck MRK is expected to report Q2 earnings Monday, July 21 before market open, with a conference call scheduled for 9:00 am ET. Guidance Analysts are looking for a profit of 83c on revenue of $6.05B. The consensus range is 80c to 85c for EPS, and revenue of $5.86B to...
Derek Lowe submits: You may or may not have noticed, but slowly and quietly, Merck MRK has been getting many of the large Vioxx judgments against it overturned on appeal. These cases made huge headlines when they were first tried, but the articles that tell the end of the...
Aaron F. Barkoff submits: Merck & Co. v. Apotex, No. 2007-1362 (Fed. Cir. 2008) Fosamax alendronate sodium is one of the all-time best-selling drugs for the treatment and prevention of osteoporosis, with over $3 billion in U.S. sales last year. Merck MRK listed ten patents in the Orange Book for Fosamax: ...
Mike Huckman submits: For the second time in three days, the Food and Drug Administration has delayed making a decision on drugs that it had put on a fast track. First, the agency put off a ruling on Lilly's LLY bloodthinner Effient, and then yesterday morning, Merck MRK announced...
By Ransdell Pierson NEW YORK (Reuters) - Merck & Co MRK said on Thursday that more than 97 percent of eligible U.S. claimants had elected to participate in its $4.85 billion proposed Vioxx settlement, an adequate number to trigger funding of the ...
Michael Steinberg submits: The first shock came after Merck MRK and Schering-Plough’s SGP Vytorin ENHANCE study. Surrogate markers like cholesterol counts would no longer be enough to garner marketing approval. Genzyme GENZ and Isis ISIS received the first blow. Isis’ cholesterol drug Mipomersen would have to undergo an outcomes study...
Mike Huckman submits: Big pharma makes strange bedfellows. Pfizer PFE, Merck MRK, and Eli Lilly LLY announced yesterday morning that they've launched a joint venture of sorts called, "Enlight Biosciences". They're doing it with the help of the Boston-based VC ("Venture Creation," the website says, not "Venture Capital") firm...
Mike Huckman submits: On another ugly day for the stock markets on Friday, beaten down shares of Dow component Merck MRK rallied. The stock started picking up steam after the news broke late Friday morning that its late-stage experimental migraine headache drug essentially works just as well as an...
A close reading of the Merck and Schering-Plough first-quarter conference calls suggests that Merck is distancing itself from its joint-venture partner -- who is, in any event, in a much worse position to weather the storm over their cholesterol-fighting pill Vytorin. Vytorin, of course, is a combination...
The pharmaceutical industry has always been dependent on technological innovation for success. In recent years, the risk and reward of this innovation has increased markedly as the costs and uncertainty of developing new drugs have mushroomed. The process of creating drugs is long and arduous. Managing how new pharmaceuticals are...
Derek Lowe submits: Here's an interesting idea: Merck MRK, Lilly LLY, and Pfizer PFE are bankrolling a startup company to look for new technologies for drug development. Enlight Biosciences will focus on the biggest bottlenecks and risk points in the process, including new imaging techniques for preclinical and clinical...
