Merck and Schering delay 2Q reports to afternoon

The move drove their shares down, with Schering-Plough's diving by as much as 15 percent Monday morning.

The two companies market Vytorin, which combines Schering-Plough's Zetia and Merck's Zocor, through a joint venture. They were to report quarterly results Monday morning but delayed them at the last minute for an update from a patient study called the Simvastatin plus Ezetimibe in Aortic Stenosis, or SEAS. Simvastatin is the generic name for Zocor, while ezetimibe is the generic name for Zetia.

The update will be at 1 p.m. EDT by Dr. Terje Pedersen, the lead investigator in the SEAS trial, which compares Vytorin to a placebo in treating aortic stenosis, or narrowing of the aorta, the heart's biggest artery.

Analyst Steve Brozak of WBB Securities said he sees an 80 percent chance the results will be bad news for the companies.

"They're trying to figure out how to go out there and break it to the shareholders," he said, adding the announcement will be scrutinized both for what is said and for what is not said.

Deutsche Bank analyst Barbara Ryan wrote that the call delay suggests "a definitive outcome may have emerged from the study," even though most analysts expect that the study would find Vytorin performed no better than a placebo in slowing narrowing of the aorta, reducing number of valve replacements needed or reducing heart attacks, strokes and death.

James Kelly, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, wrote in a note to investors that the most likely scenarios are that the researchers found Vytorin didn't reduce cardiovascular risks but slowed narrowing of the aorta, or that Vytorin didn't improve any measures of heart disease. But he noted it's possible the study had a positive outcome or found safety problems with the drug.

It is one of four aftermarket patient studies comparing Vytorin and Zetia to placebos or generic drugs. Another highly anticipated study called IMPROVE-IT, with 18,000 patients, is meant to show whether or Vytorin reduces risk of heart attack, stroke and death in people with heart disease, but it runs until 2012.

Kenilworth, N.J.- based Schering-Plough will hold a conference call with analysts at 4:45 p.m. instead of 8 a.m. Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck will do so at 5:30 p.m. instead of 9 a.m.