Friday, October 30, 2009

AstraZeneca - Brilinta: not quite so brilliant

Back story.

AstraZeneca is looking into whether greater use of aspirin reduces the effectiveness of its experimental clot-busting medicine Brilinta, which analysts had estimated would bring in $1 billion a year.

AstraZeneca’s Brilinta beat Sanofi-Aventis SA and Bristol- Myers Squibb Co.’s blood thinner Plavix in a study, preventing 16 percent more heart attacks, strokes and deaths. The trial included more than 18,000 patients in 43 countries. Those in North America may have done worse on Brilinta, a finding that raised questions among analysts about potential U.S. sales. London-based AstraZeneca said today that researchers noticed a link between higher doses of aspirin and Brilinta’s potency.

Brilinta is one of four medicines AstraZeneca planned to seek approval for this year to offset declining sales of products that will lose patent protection. The U.K. drugmaker withdrew its application for lung cancer therapy Zactima yesterday after an analysis showed the drug didn’t improve patients’ survival. Third-quarter profit rose 23 percent.

“Of the four drugs due for filing this year: Zactima has been pulled; Brilinta looks very weak to us now, and that leaves two,” said Navid Malik, an analyst at Matrix Corporate Capital in London, in a note to clients. “With 40 percent of revenues going generic in the next five years, we would be highly concerned about AstraZeneca’s future earnings and sales potential.”

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