Merck cholesterol drug’s odds dim after Lilly failure
The odds that Merck & Co’s high-stakes cholesterol drug will succeed have dropped dramatically after Eli Lilly and Co said its similar medicine failed to reduce heart attacks and strokes, top U.S. heart doctors said. Lilly on Monday said it was halting a 12,000-patient study of its drug, evacetrapib, an oral medication. In earlier studies, the treatment cut “bad” LDL cholesterol by 30 to 35 percent and doubled the levels of “good” LDL cholesterol.