Wednesday, January 10, 2007

ARISE at AstraZeneca, or maybe a fall?

AstraZeneca and U.S. partner AtheroGenics may miss a goal of releasing results from a late-stage trial of their most important experimental product, a treatment for heart disease, by the end of the first quarter.

AstraZeneca's CEO David Brennan dampened expectations for AGI-1067, which was acquired in December 2005 for $50 million upfront and as much as $1 billion potentially, in a Dec 18 interview with The Times of London newspaper.

He said it was a "very high-risk project'' and has "a low probability of success'' in the ARISE clinical trial.

"Unless the data is outstanding, this doesn't solve all of the problems for AstraZeneca,'' Paul Diggle, analyst at Code Nomura, said in an interview.

AGI-1067 would give AstraZeneca a medicine intended to treat existing plaque buildup in arteries to sell along its Crestor cholesterol treatment.

If AGI-1067 doesn't meet its primary endpoint in the ARISE trial, "that effectively means the decks are cleared'' for Brennan, Cartwright said in an interview.

Much more at Bloomberg

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