The objective of Merck Serono’s research and development work in the therapeutic area of Fertility is to help infertile couples at every stage of the reproductive cycle – from follicular development to early pregnancy – to realize their dream of having a child. We want our innovative treatments and application devices to offer maximum convenience of use and increase the chances of pregnancy. Our well-established products for the treatment of infertility are already known for their safety and efficacy. Further improvements in the number of successful pregnancies are only possible by realigning our R&D activities in Fertility. By focusing on drugs, technologies and support services, we want to improve the success of in vitro fertilization treatments and thus increase the take-home baby rate.
In the course of this new strategy, we terminated the Phase II program for a long-acting recombinant follicle-stimulating hormone (hyperglycosylated FSH) for assisted reproduction therapy and to induce ovulation. The expected benefit for patients would have been too low. This would not have warranted the significant time and investment required for late-stage development and the subsequent submission of an application for marketing authorization.
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