Centre Piece Of Merck's $11.5B Acceleron Buyout Aces Late-Stage Cardiovascular Trial

Merck & Co Inc MRK announced topline results from the pivotal Phase 3 STELLAR trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of sotatercept, an investigational activin receptor type IIA-Fc fusion protein as an add-on to stable background therapy for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).
The drug is designed to tone down inflammation in PAH patients, a rare type of high blood pressure that affects the arteries in the lungs and the right side of the heart.
Merck added sotatercept, the lead drug in Acceleron's pipeline, which it acquired for $11.5 billion last year.
The company said that the primary win on a 6-minute walk distance over 24 weeks is statistically significant and clinically meaningful.
Sotatercept also aced measures like the proportion of participants achieving multicomponent improvement and time to death or the first occurrence of a clinical worsening event.
Eight of nine secondary efficacy outcome measures achieved statistical significance.
The only endpoint that wasn't met was the cognitive and emotional impacts domain score of PAH-SYMPACT.
The safety profile of sotatercept in STELLAR was generally consistent with what has been observed in Phase 2.
Price Action: MRK shares are up 3.01% at $90.24 on the last check Monday.