As­traZeneca sweeps out a PhI­II asth­ma flop, a PD-1 drug and some oth­er re­jects as Q4 tal­ly dis­ap­points

As­traZeneca dis­posed a late-stage asth­ma flop and a few oth­er ear­ly-stage as­sets this morn­ing as it faced a grow­ing cho­rus of crit­i­cism over its per­sis­tent­ly weak rev­enue fig­ures.

Re­searchers hit the eject but­ton on tralok­inum­ab in Q4, which went 0-for-3 in Phase III for un­con­trolled asth­ma.

The fail­ure here high­lights a com­mon prob­lem with late-stage pro­grams. The drug failed a Phase IIb study, but in­ves­ti­ga­tors want­ed go af­ter a niche af­ter high­light­ing ev­i­dence of suc­cess in the sub­group analy­sis. That led them right in­to a blind al­ley. The IL-13 group al­so in­cludes le­brik­izum­ab, which came up with mixed da­ta for Roche be­fore the phar­ma gi­ant sold it off.

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