(Reuters) -Merck & Co Inc said on Monday its experimental therapy, sotatercept, helped increase exercise capacity in patients with a deadly disease that causes high pressure in blood vessels of the heart and lungs in a late-stage study.
A second experimental heart drug, MK-0616, helped reduce levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol by between 41.2% at a low 6 mg dose to 60.9% at a higher 30 mg dose in a mid-stage study, the drugmaker said.
Shares of Merck rose 1.5% to $108.50.
Sotatercept, which Merck gained through its $11.5 billion buyout of Acceleron Pharma, combined with background therapy helped extend the distance that patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension could walk in six minutes by 40.8 meters.
Investors have been looking for an improvement of over 30 meters, Wells Fargo analyst Mohit Bansal had said in a research note ahead of the detailed analysis of the study.
Sotatercept also showed statistically significant improvement in eight of the nine secondary goals, including reducing the risk of death or clinical worsening of condition by 84% compared to placebo.
Merck has been beefing up its portfolio of cardiovascular drugs as part of its strategy to counter a possible hit to sales to its best-selling drug Keytruda from biosimilar drugs in the next few years.
In October, Merck said sotatercept had met the main goal of a late-stage study, but did not release the full data.
Analysts had said the other drug, MK-0616, would need to show a more than 50% reduction in LDL level, similar to drugs from rivals Regeneron and Sanofi SA and Amgen.
The data were presented at the American College of Cardiology’s annual meeting in New Orleans.
(Reporting by Khushi Mandowara in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
