Merck and Schering delay 2Q reports to afternoon

Sales of Vytorin and Zetia took a hit in January after a study, called ENHANCE, showed Vytorin is no more effective at reducing plaque buildup in neck arteries than Zocor alone. Cheaper generic versions of Zocor have been on sale for two years.

After more details were released in March, prominent cardiologists urged doctors to go back to older, well-proven treatments for high cholesterol, and many apparently did. Last week, Schering-Plough reported the number of U.S. prescriptions filled for Vytorin and Zetia had both fallen by just over 25 percent from January to June, when total cholesterol drug sales were down about 5 percent. Vytorin prescriptions alone dropped from 1.84 million in January to 1.33 million in June.

Over the first half of 2008, Merck shares fell 35 percent and Schering-Plough shares fell 26 percent.

The ENHANCE study was completed nearly 2 years before the first data were released. The companies have denied charges they deliberately delayed releasing the results, blaming the holdup on the complexity of the analysis.

However, it sparked consumer fraud lawsuits and investigations by the Senate's Finance Committee and the House's Energy and Commerce Committee into how Merck and Schering-Plough handled the study data while they were aggressively marketing Vytorin with "Food and Family" ads. In April, the Senate committee released evidence the companies may have known long ago that research showed Vytorin was no more effective than Zocor but withheld it to pump up sales of Vytorin.

Vytorin costs $100 a month or more, while a generic version of Zocor costs about one-third as much. Cholesterol drugs are the top-selling class in the country.

On average, analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect Kenilworth, N.J.-based Schering-Plough to earn 42 cents per share on $4.77 billion in revenue. They expect an average of 83 cents per share on $6.05 billion in revenue for Merck, which is based in Whitehouse Station, N.J.

In midday trading before the announcement, Merck shares were down 90 cents, or 2.4 percent, at $36.79, while Schering-Plough shares were down $2.16, or 10.1 percent, at $19.28.