AstraZeneca is one of the day’s bigger risers in a falling market after a positive update on its Brilinta heart treatment.
The blood thinning drug cut the risk of death or heart attack in patients with a history of previous attacks, according to the results from a study of 21,000 people. Chief executive Pascal Soriot has high hopes for Brilinta, cited as one of its potential blockbusters when he successfully fought off Pfizer’s $118bn bid last year. AstraZeneca forecast annual sales of $3.5bn by 2023 for Brilinta, part of a total prediction of $45bn sales.
Berenberg analysts said:
The key issue going into this trial was whether any benefit on cardiac event rate would be offset by an increased bleeding risk. Full details were not released, although the company has said that the preliminary analysis did not reveal any unexpected safety issues – suggesting that the bleeding rate was within the range expected. We will see full data later this year.
Brilinta has disappointed from launch...[this result] is clearly positive news, although we think the consensus view was that the trial would read out successfully. As such this result will likely serve to reinforce consensus forecasts of the drug for later years, rather than providing significant upside to estimates – consensus already currently sits at $1.3bn in sales by 2018 (our estimate: $1.1bn), versus around $500m in 2014.
Citigroup said:
[The positive data] is in line with our analysis and expectations and supports our continued positive stance on AstraZeneca with £54 target price. We estimate $3.2bn for risk-adjusted Brilinta sales in 2023 compared with peak consensus revenues between $1-2bn. While today’s news is associated with a significant likely increase in net present value (£2 per share), we anticipate a relatively muted near term market reaction until full [trial] data is presented at ACC in March and AHA conference in November 2015. Key criteria that will determine the magnitude of commercial impact include (i) absolute magnitude of clinical benefit between the treatment arms (ii) whether continued therapy is responsible for divergent benefit (iii) comparative minor and major bleeding rate between the arms (iv) survival benefit. We expect significant analysis of the data to understand which sub-patient population is deriving the greatest benefit from Brilinta.
AstraZeneca has added 31.5p to 4748.5p.
Overall the FTSE 100 is currently down 90.16 points at 6452.04, hit by falling mining shares as commodity prices slump on global demand fears.
