Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

I listened to MRK’s Suvorexant webcast and I found what strikes me as a smoking gun: the lack of any plan for a head-to-head study against Lunesta or Ambien CR despite the fact that such a study is required for Suvorexant approval in the EU.

Writing off the entire EU market leaves a lot of money on the table, so the only plausible inference is that MRK thinks there’s a fairly high probability that a head-to-head study against Lunesta or Ambien CR would yield a finding of non-inferiority rather than superiority.

Suvorexant does have some clear strengths, such as no attenuation of efficacy even after one year of continuous dosing. However, MRK’s unwillingness to run a head-to-head study tells me that, in all likelihood, Suvorexant will turn out to be a just a reasonably good sleep drug rather than the Holy Grail insomniacs have been waiting for.