Shares of Incyte Corp. fell 22.9 percent Friday, to $64.02 a share, after the company and Merck said a trial of Incyte's immunosuppressant drug, epacadostat, combined with Merck's cancer-fighting drug Keytruda, did not keep skin-cancer patients alive any longer than giving them plain Keytruda.
Incyte, based in Wilmington, Del., is among a group of companies trying to develop cancer treatments based on the protein Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, which inhibits cell reproduction. Shares of another company focused on such treatments, Iowa-based NewLinks Genetics, fell 42.6 percent to $4.20 per share. Incyte has other drug-development deals with Merck rival Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, and AstraZeneca.
"Based on these results," and the recommendations of the independent data-monitoring committee overseeing the tests, "the study will be stopped," the companies said in a joint statement.
