Pharmaceutical firm Roche is ending the trials of a heart drug Dalcetrapib. The company said that the results of a trial show the drug doesn't work.
This is according to information from its Data and Safety Monitoring Board, which recommended stopping the trial because of "a lack of clinically meaningful efficacy".
Roche directly employs up to 225 people at its Clarecastle pharmaceutical manufacturing site in County Clare. A further 150 people are employed as contractors at the facility.
The group employs 300 people in total in Ireland, with its Irish pharmaceutical commercial operations headquarters in Citywest in Dublin.
A statement from the company says that while the news is disappointing for the patients and for the many people who have worked to prepare the Roche site for the production of Dalcetrapib, that the Clarecastle site works on a number of Roche medicines including CellCept, Xenical, Xeloda and Invirase.
Sven Hauptmann, Managing Director of Roche Ireland, said in a statement that the news was disappointing for patients and those in the company who had worked on the production of the drug.
They have spoken to staff, he said, are aware of the concerns of employees and contractors and appreciate the uncertainty that the news causes. He said that it was too early to assess the impact, if any on the manufacturing sites.
