MRK
A clean win, at least on paper
Merck presented initial Phase 2b data for tulisokibart at the EADV 2026 Congress, and the headline was simple: the study met its primary endpoint in moderate to severe hidradenitis suppurativa. That’s biotech for “the drug did what it was supposed to do,” which is always a nice change of pace.
At week 16, the high-dose group posted a 72% HiSCR50 response rate, the medium-dose group came in at 64%, and placebo lagged at 35%. In other words, the treatment arms weren’t just nibbling around the edges — they actually moved the needle.
Why investors should care
This isn’t an FDA approval or a revenue line item yet. But for Merck, every promising readout matters because the company is trying to keep its pipeline stocked while the Keytruda machine eventually ages out of its “we print money” phase.
A few things stand out:
- The drug also showed numerical gains on HiSCR75 and quality-of-life measures.
- Safety looked broadly similar to placebo, which is the sort of sentence biotech investors love to hear.
- Merck says the anti-TL1A program spans six disease areas, including late-stage work in ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.
The bigger picture
This is the kind of news that can help a big pharma name defend its future story. Not every catalyst needs to be a blockbuster approval; sometimes it’s just evidence that the next wave of drugs isn’t vaporware.
Big picture: Merck got a decent pipeline checkpoint, and in pharma land, that’s how the next chapter starts.