What Happened?
Shares of global pharmaceutical company Merck (NYSE: MRK) jumped 11.3% in the afternoon session after the company and its partner Moderna announced that their personalized mRNA cancer vaccine succeeded in a late-stage trial.
According to a joint announcement from Merck and Moderna, the Phase 3 trial for their vaccine, intismeran autogene, combined with Merck's immunotherapy drug Keytruda, met its primary goal of recurrence-free survival in patients with high-risk.
The study also hit a key secondary goal of distant metastasis-free survival, meaning it reduced the spread of the cancer. This combination treatment significantly lowered the risk of cancer recurrence or death compared to using Keytruda alone, the report revealed.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Merck’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 5 moves greater than 5% over the last year. Moves this big are rare for Merck and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 11 months ago when the stock gained 7.7% on the news that the Trump administration announced a new program to sell drugs directly to consumers.
Merck is up 42.1% since the beginning of the year, and at $151.25 per share, it has set a new 52-week high. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Merck’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,928.
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