Proactiveinvestors recommends
Additional Information
Market: NYSE
Sector: Pharmaceuticals
EPIC: MRK
1 year chart
digital-look imported chart image
1 day chart
digital-look imported chart image
Merck & Co
www.merck.com

Merck & Co., Inc. is a research- driven pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures and markets a range of innovative products to improve human and animal health, directly and through its joint ventures.

Full Merck & Co profile here
Pdf

Merck's hepatitis C drug receives positive recommendation from EMA

20th May 2011, 10:46 am by Deborah Sterescu
Merck's hepatitis C drug receives positive recommendation from EMA

Healthcare giant Merck (NYSE:MRK) said Friday that Europe's regulatory drug agency has recommended the company's investigational medicine boceprevir, a treatment for the hepatitis C virus, for approval.

The positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) will now be reviewed by the European Commission, which gives marketing authorization valid in all 27 EU member countries, as well as EEA members.

Hepatitis C is an infectious disease affecting the liver, and is often asymptomatic, but once established, chronic infection can progress to scarring of the liver, and eventually liver failure or other complications including liver cancer.

The drug, which this month was approved by the US FDA, is intended to treat chronic hepatitis C virus, in combination with peginterferon alfa and ribavirin, in adult patients with liver disease who have been previously untreated or who have failed prior therapy.

Boceprevir is an anti-viral drug designed to interfere with the ability of the hepatitis C virus to replicate, by inhibiting a key viral enzyme.

New Jersey-based Merck said the positive opinion from the EMA was based on efficacy and safety results from two large phase three clinical studies that tested 1,500 patients at sites in the EU and US.

No investment advice

The Company is a publisher and is not registered with or authorised by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). You understand and agree that no content published on the Site constitutes a recommendation that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction, or investment strategy is suitable or advisable for any specific person. You further understand that none of the information providers or their affiliates will advise you personally concerning the nature, potential, advisability, value or suitability of any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction, investment strategy, or other matter.

You understand that the Site may contain opinions from time to time with regard to securities mentioned in other products, including company related products, and that those opinions may be different from those obtained by using another product related to the Company. You understand and agree that contributors may write about securities in which they or their firms have a position, and that they may trade such securities for their own account. In cases where the position is held at the time of publication and such position is known to the Company, appropriate disclosure is made. However, you understand and agree that at the time of any transaction that you make, one or more contributors may have a position in the securities written about. You understand that price and other data is supplied by sources believed to be reliable, that the calculations herein are made using such data, and that neither such data nor such calculations are guaranteed by these sources, the Company, the information providers or any other person or entity, and may not be complete or accurate.

From time to time, reference may be made in our marketing materials to prior articles and opinions we have published. These references may be selective, may reference only a portion of an article or recommendation, and are likely not to be current. As markets change continuously, previously published information and data may not be current and should not be relied upon.