AbbVie shares fell yesterday after an early trial showed patients taking the company’s experimental lung cancer drug survived fewer months than typical of those on chemotherapy.

The results have raised questions as to whether the biopharmaceutical company, which was formed in 2013 following separation from Abbott Laboratories, was right to buy the medicine in a $5.8 billion deal.

In patients with a form of lung cancer who expressed more of protein marker DLL3 targeted by AbbVie’s drug, Rova-T, median survival was 5.8 months. The median for the only approved drug for recurrent disease is about seven months. – (Bloomberg)