So it goes — the end of one of the Merck Schering-Plough Joint Ventures was announced today (just one more to go) — the one developing a loratadine/montelukast combination tablet. This is also the one that received a recent FDA non-approvable letter, days after company officials expressed hopeful news of a favorable FDA ruling on the First Quarter 2008 conference call.

My heart goes out to all the employees who chose to believe that Schering-Plough could make a go of this candidate. Many of them will, no doubt, find other jobs inside Schering-Plough or Merck, but many will also be out of work in one of the toughest environments for pharmaceuticals employment prospects in about 20 years. That is unfortunate in the extreme. Avoidable, and thus, doubly unfortunate.