Scoop: Merck scraps PhII trials of Alzheimer’s and depression small molecule after liver toxicity observations

Mer­ck has end­ed work on two sep­a­rate Phase II stud­ies of its small mol­e­cule for treat­ment-re­sis­tant de­pres­sion and mild-to-mod­er­ate Alzheimer’s dis­ease, the phar­ma con­firmed to End­points News.

An un­blind­ed re­view of da­ta from the two tri­als “sug­gest­ed MK-1942 was po­ten­tial­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with ob­ser­va­tions of liv­er tox­i­c­i­ty,” a Mer­ck spokesper­son told End­points in an email Wednes­day morn­ing. “This re­view was trig­gered by the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of ab­nor­mal­i­ties in liv­er func­tion tests for sev­er­al study par­tic­i­pants. No re­lat­ed Se­ri­ous Ad­verse Events (SAE) were re­port­ed.”

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