Novartis is to seek approval later this year in Europe and Japan for a new combination lung drug to treat so-called smoker's cough after it met expectations in final trials, the Swiss firm said on Thursday. The drug, QVA149, combines Novartis's Onbrez and its other lung drug NVA237 as a two-in-one medicine that should allow Novartis to take on market leader GlaxoSmithKline. An application for approval in the United States is set to be filed at the end of next year, Novartis said. However, Bank Vontobel analyst Andrew Weiss said that although Novartis showed the drug to be superior to another of its own drugs, QVA149 is not significantly better than Spiriva, a rival drug from Pfizer and Boehringer Ingelheim in treating patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
