STAT+: Alnylam defends heart disease drugs after failure of AstraZeneca’s Wainua
An AstraZeneca heart disease trial failure has put Alnylam under pressure. It's mounting a defense of its medicines.
On Friday, AstraZeneca disclosed the unexpected failure of a high-profile heart disease clinical trial, revealing that its experimental drug, a type of silencer, provided no additional benefits for patients who were already on a stabilizer, a different class of medication. The study found that patients with ATTR-CM, a progressive condition, who received AstraZeneca’s drug, a silencer, experienced no improvement if they were already taking a stabilizer, an effect so significant that it led to the entire Phase 3 study’s failure.
At the start of the trial, most participants were already taking a stabilizer. The trial’s outcome has far-reaching implications not just for AstraZeneca and its partnership with Ionis Pharmaceuticals, but for other companies that sell ATTR-CM drugs, including Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, which offers another silencer, and BridgeBio, the manufacturer of a new stabilizer.
Analysts have suggested that the study’s results support the view that stabilizers, oral medications, may be superior to injectable silencers.
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