Dive Brief:
- AstraZeneca's hopes for its blood thinner Brilinta (ticagrelor) suffered a major setback after the British pharma revealed Tuesday the drug failed to show benefit over the longtime standard medication clopidogrel for people with peripheral artery disease (PAD).
- The drugmaker scaled back its sales projections for Brilinta following the trial failure, telling Reuters it was now unlikely to hit its previously stated forecast of $3.5 billion in annual sales by 2023
- Back in May, Brilinta also missed its primary endpoint in a major stroke study, performing no better than aspirin in preventing recurrent attacks. PAD, the target of the more recent study, impacts between 8 million and 12 million people in the U.S., according to the National Institutes of Health.
Dive Insight:
Brilinta has been a frustrating drug for AstraZeneca, but the company still has hopes for the medication in treating cardiac related events. The anticoagulant is already marketed as a treatment for people who have suffered a heart attack, but had been seen as a potential therapy in other areas.
Still, the setbacks in acute ischaemic stroke and in PAD could prove damaging to AstraZeneca's ability to grow revenue from the drug.
AstraZeneca has previously shown Brilinta can reduce the rate of atherothrombotic cardiovascular events, such as heart attack, in patients with acute coronary syndrome. It has also bested clopidogrel, the generic form of Sanofi's former best-seller Plavix, in reducing the rate of CV death and myocardial infarction.
But the EUCLID trial, comparing Brilinta to clopidrogrel across nearly 14,000 patients, failed to prove a similar edge in PAD.
"We are disappointed that the Euclid trial results showed Brilinta did not demonstrate a benefit over clopidogrel in this specific symptomatic PAD population," said Sean Bohen, chief medical officer at AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca had pointed to Brilinta’s potential success as part of its defense of Pfizer's hostile takeover bid two years ago.
Despite the disappointing results, AstraZeneca expressed confidence in Brilinta's already proven efficacy. "The proven benefits of Brilinta in acute coronary syndrome and post-myocardial infarction patients are established and remain unchanged," said Bohen.
But as CEO Pascal Soriot's $45 billion revenue target (by 2023) looks increasingly challenging to meet, AstraZeneca might feel the effect of Brilinta's setbacks more acutely. The drugmaker has been active in selling off non-core assets — including several deals this week — in an effort to raise short-term revenues while it tries to grow several new drugs.