NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of Merck & Co. Inc. fell 7 percent on Friday after the drugmaker scrapped its second experimental medicine in 10 days.
Shares of the Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based company slumped to their lowest level in more than 16 months after a diabetes drug was found to cause cancer in mice.
Merck said late on Thursday that it had halted late-stage trials of the medicine, MK-767, which it was developing with Japan’s Kyorin Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., because of the rodent tumors.
Current drugs for diabetes focus on controlling blood sugar, but many patients also have a problem with blood fats. MK-767 was designed to control both disorders.
Merck said it plans to begin late-stage trials on a different diabetes drug and could seek approval for the medicine within three years if it proves safe and effective.
“Drug discovery is a risky and complicated business with more disappointments than successes,” said Merck Chief Executive Raymond Gilmartin, who was to appear on Friday as a featured speaker at the Reuters Health Summit in New York.
On Nov. 12, Merck pulled the plug on another medicine, one being tested against depression, after it proved ineffective in clinical trials. The drug, called aprepitant, is already approved to treat vomiting in chemotherapy patients.
For six years the company had touted aprepitant, which blocks a protein called Substance P, as a potential breakthrough treatment for depression.
Merck had been counting on the diabetes and depression drugs to help revive its earnings, whose growth has stalled following patent expirations on a handful of its older products and disappointing sales of its arthritis treatment Vioxx due to safety concerns.
Shares of Merck were down $3.31 at $41.85 in mid-morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
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