Merck & Co moves Alzheimer's candidate MK-8931 into Ph II/III

US drug giant Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) says it has started a Phase II/III clinical trial designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of MK-8931 versus placebo in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease.

MK-8931 is Merck's novel investigational oral beta-amyloid precursor protein site-cleaving enzyme (BACE) inhibitor, and is the first with this mechanism to advance to this stage of clinical research, the company noted. The global, multi-center study, called EPOCH, is designed to initially evaluate the safety of MK-8931 in a cohort of 200 patients prior to advancing into a larger Phase III study.

Darryle Schoepp, senior vice president and head of Neuroscience and Ophthalmology, Merck Research Laboratories, commented: “As the global health and financial burden of Alzheimer's disease grows, innovative research is critically needed, and we need to accelerate this research wherever possible. This new study is an important step in our overall strategy to understand the potential of the BACE inhibitor mechanism and MK-8931, our lead compound, in multiple stages of Alzheimer's disease."