AstraZeneca
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AstraZeneca remains “very much on track” to hit its 2030 goal of reaching $80 billion in revenue despite the recent late-stage failure of Wainua in ATTR-cardiomyopathy, CEO Pascal Soriot said during the company’s Q2 earnings presentation on Monday.
Safety will be the key determinant of in vivo CAR T therapies, according to H.C. Wainwright’s Mitchel Kapoor, who noted that convenience and efficacy won’t be enough to impress investors in this space. Eli Lilly, AbbVie, AstraZeneca and more are up for the challenge.
With a Phase 3 failure denting the rare disease drug’s prospects, AstraZeneca has little room for error as it plots a path toward its ambitious 2030 sales target.
Dizal Pharmaceutical’s Zegfrovy is approved in the U.S. for locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. For $600 million upfront, AstraZeneca will gain global rights to advance and commercialize the asset.
The failure of AstraZeneca and Ionis’ Wainua in a late-stage study of ATTR-CM casts doubt on Alnylam’s next-generation candidate but is good news for others in the space, including BridgeBio and Intellia Therapeutics.
The late-stage miss is “surprising,” Stifel analysts said, given that Wainua’s mechanism of silencing transthyretin protein expression has previously proven effective.
In AstraZeneca’s third trip to Asia this year, the pharma secured ex-China rights to a dual inhibitor of PDE3 and PDE4, which in a Phase 2b study significantly improved lung function and lowered symptom burden in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.
AstraZeneca and CSPC Pharmaceutical Group have already inked two other agreements this year, including an obesity-focused deal in January and one focused on chronic diseases in June.
Over the past decade, Eli Lilly has bought out more biotechs than any of the other top 12 pharmas by revenue—with 10 of those acquisitions arriving just this year.
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