No­var­tis’ big PhI­II for canakinum­ab scores a sur­prise win help­ing heart at­tack pa­tients

No­var­tis build­ings in Basel, Switzer­land, as seen from Dreirosen­bruecke bridge

With its new heart drug En­tresto strug­gling to find trac­tion and its top late-stage ef­fort for sere­lax­in a flop, No­var­tis to­day may have fi­nal­ly turned things around with the big Phase III win in car­dio it’s been search­ing for.

The phar­ma gi­ant’s canakinum­ab (ACZ885) sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced the risk of a com­pos­ite of car­dio­vas­cu­lar death, non-fa­tal my­ocar­dial in­farc­tion and non-fa­tal stroke for pa­tients with a pri­or heart at­tack and in­flam­ma­to­ry ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis. The phar­ma gi­ant is stick­ing with top line da­ta for now, but with an­a­lysts skep­ti­cal that the 6-year, 10,000-plus pa­tient study would come through, No­var­tis saw its shares jump more than 2% Thurs­day morn­ing.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER