Why Merck Stock Is Heating Up Today
Pharma giant Merck (NYSE: MRK) saw its shares rise by a healthy 9% in premarket trading Friday morning. That's equivalent to a $5 billion jump in market capitalization.
What's juicing Merck's stock price this morning? Ahead of the opening bell, the company announced that its oral antiviral medication molnupiravir -- developed in conjunction with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics -- cut the risk of hospitalization for COVID-19 by half. This result reportedly comes from a planned interim analysis of a phase 3 trial of the drug in at-risk, nonhospitalized adult patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19. Even more impressively, zero patients who received molnupiravir in the study passed away, whereas eight patient deaths were recorded in the placebo wing of the trial.
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Source Fool.com
