S-P and Merck & Co delay earnings release for clinical data update

US drug majors Schering-Plough and Merck & Co delayed their scheduled release of second-quarter 2008 financial results, which were due on the morning of July 21, until after the close of the New York Stock Exchange that day.

In what was viewed as a highly-unusual move, the firms said the change was because Terje Pedersen, chief of the Preventive Medicine Clinic, Ulleval University Hospital, Oslo, Norway, and the primary investigator of Simvastatin plus Ezetimibe in Aortic Stenosis study (SEAS), has announced that he will present an update on the study at 1pm that day.

The two companies jointly market Vytorin (simvastatin plus ezetimibe), which has seen its sales plunge since a study released in January suggested that drug is no more effective than simvastatin alone (Marketletters passim).