Sanofi walks away from MyoKar­dia heart drug part­ner­ship, long be­fore key da­ta read­out

Last June, MyoKar­dia launched its keen­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed piv­otal tri­al for its ge­net­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed lead heart drug. Da­ta are ex­pect­ed next year, but part­ner Sanofi is not wait­ing around. On Wednes­day, the San Fran­cis­co-based biotech said its French part­ner had elect­ed to cease their part­ner­ship that was forged in 2014.

The drug, mava­camten, is ex­pect­ed to break new ground in heart dis­ease, a field mo­nop­o­lized by phar­ma ma­jors large­ly due to the long, ar­du­ous and ex­pen­sive tri­als that are com­mon­place in heart drug de­vel­op­ment. Un­like oth­er com­pa­nies fo­cus­ing on com­mon heart dis­or­ders, MyoKar­dia’s lead ex­per­i­men­tal treat­ment is al­so tar­get­ing a so-far un­tapped con­di­tion — ob­struc­tive hy­per­trophic car­diomy­opa­thy — in which a heart pro­tein mu­ta­tion forces the or­gan to squeeze more, thick­en­ing heart mus­cles and cre­at­ing a cas­cade of con­se­quences that can cul­mi­nate in death.

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