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As I mentioned in previous posts, things are simply not going Merck’s way. Merck has been battered in the past several months by the Singular flap, precipitous drops in Vytorin and Zetia sales and, most recently, FDA’s rejection of its follow-up Cordaptive anti-cholesterol drug. This has left the drug maker with little choice but to cut an additional 1,200 jobs from its rapidly shrinking US sales force.

The cuts, announced yesterday, are in addition to a companywide reorganization that began in 2005 which resulted in the elimination of approximately 8,100 positions. As of last December, Merck had 59,800 employees worldwide—soon to be 58,600 give or take a few employees!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting???????

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The NY Times reported today that a federal advisory committee voted that Genentech’s drug Avastin should not be approved as a treatment for metastatic breast cancer.

By a 5-4 vote, the committee decided that Avastin’s ability to delay the worsening of cancer did not outweigh the drug’s toxic side effects, especially since women getting Avastin did not live significantly longer in the end. Although the committee recommended against approval for Avastin, FDA has the final word. That said, FDA usually follows the recommendations of its external advisory panels.

FDA’s staff reviewers had been critical of the drug in an analysis released on Monday. Nevertheless, many Wall Street analysts thought the committee, made up mainly of cancer experts and physicians, would vote in favor of approval.

Analysts were expecting an approval in breast cancer to add $1 billion or more to annual sales of Avastin. Genentech’s stock price has been steadily declining for the last two years because its once explosive growth appears to be slowing.

Avastin is already one of the world’s best-selling cancer drugs, with United States sales alone of $1.7 billion in the first nine months of 2007.

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting

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All good things must come to an end. Yesterday, FDA regulatory reviewers suggested that Avastin, Genentech’s anti-cancer drug, may not be an effective treatment for breast cancer. FDA reviewers determined that Avastin did not help women with breast cancer live significantly longer, and it caused serious side effects, including a few deaths.

An advisory committee to the F.D.A. will meet tomorrow to discuss whether Avastin, already a blockbuster drug for colon and lung cancer, will win an additional approval for breast cancer. The drug had $1.7 billion in United States sales in the first nine months of 2007.

It is unlikely that the advisory panel (composed of practicing physicians, other healthcare professionals and community advocates) will recommend approval of Avastin given the analysis provided by agency reviewers. That said, stranger things have happened at FDA over the past 9 years or so! My sources at FDA tell me that agency reviewers recommended against approval for Vioxx (Merck’s Cox-2 inhibitor that was subsequently withdrawn from the market) but the recommendation was not heeded by agency administrators.

The analysis by the agency’s staff appeared to dim the prospects that Avastin would win an approval as a treatment for breast cancer. Genentech’s stock fell $2.75, or 3.6 percent, yesterday, closing at $73.50.

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!

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