LONDON, Sept 7 (Reuters) – Shares of Novartis fell 3.3% on Monday morning after its cholesterol drug failed in a closely watched study, casting fresh doubt on the therapeutic approach and raising the stakes for the Swiss drugmaker’s upcoming data for a gene therapy.
Late on Friday, Novartis said its drug pelacarsen did not cut heart attack and stroke risk in a large, late-stage study of patients with high Lp(a), an inherited, cholesterol-related risk factor with no approved targeted treatments.
The failure raises the bar for rival Lp(a)-lowering drugs from Amgen and Eli Lilly, both running late-stage trials. It also increases the pressure on data from an experimental muscular dystrophy drug del-desiran, which Novartis spent $12 billion to acquire last year.
Analysts had modeled peak annual sales between $3 billion and $6 billion for pelacarsen.
(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija; Editing by Joe Bavier)
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