Merck scraps another late-stage Alzheimer's drug study

Merck & Co Inc on Tuesday said it will end another late-stage trial of an Alzheimer's drug because it was unlikely to work, adding to the pile-up of failures to find an effective treatment for the mind-wasting disease.The company was testing the drug, Verubecestat, in patients with very early, or prodromal, Alzheimer's disease.It scrapped the study almost exactly one year after ending a different late-stage trial of the same drug in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.