Monsanto Halts Studies on Two Heart Drugs
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(excerpts from Reuters, January 15, 1999)
Life sciences firm Monsanto Co. said Friday its Searle pharmaceutical unit
halted studies on two anti-clotting drugs that the company had hoped would
reduce the risk of repeat heart attacks.
Searle said that after analyzing data from Phase III clinical trials it found
the drugs orbofiban and xemilofiban did not demonstrate significant clinical
benefit in reducing the number of deaths, repeat heart attacks and certain
other problems. In November, Searle stopped taking new patients for one
orbofiban study after an unexplained rise in deaths among one group of
participants in the trial.