AstraZeneca buoyed as Brilinta tops Plavix in trial
pharmafile | May 13, 2009 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing |Â Â AZ, BrillintaÂ
AstraZeneca has been lifted by clinical results indicating its antiplatelet drug Brilinta outperformed Sanofi-Aventis/Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Plavix – currently the world’s second biggest-selling medicine – in a phase III trial.
The results of the PLATO study showed that in patients with acute coronary syndrome Brilinta (ticagrelor) was more effective than Plavix (clopidogrel) in preventing serious cardiovascular events such as vascular death and non-fatal myocardial infarction and stroke.
Shares in AstraZeneca have been gaining after the announcement on Monday which indicates not only that Brilinta is on track for filing in the third quarter of 2009 as planned, but also that it can break into the lucrative antiplatelet market, currently dominated by Plavix with sales of $8.6 billion last year.
Brilinta is the first reversibly-binding oral adenosine diphosphate (ADP) receptor antagonist and is chemically distinct from thienopyridines such as Plavix, according to AstraZeneca. A total of 18,600 patients were enrolled into the trial and assigned to treatment with either Brilinta or Plavix – both of which are administered orally.
AstraZeneca did not go into exhaustive detail about the results of the study, saying that the data would be presented in full in August at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) annual meeting in Barcelona, Spain.
At the moment Plavix’ nearest competitor in the ACS market is Eli Lilly and Daiichi Sankyo’s Effient (prasugrel), another thienopyridine drug which launched in its first market, the UK, last month.
A head-to-head trial comparing Effient to Plavix – called TRITON-TIMI 38 – found that the former was 19% more effective in reducing MI, stroke and cardiovascular death in ACS patients who underwent a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) such as angioplasty.
But this study also revealed that Effient-treated patients experienced a 32% increase in bleeding episodes compared to those on Plavix, and much attention will be paid to how well Brilinta fares on this measure once the PLATO data are made available in the summer.
While analysts do not believe that Brilinta or Effient will match Plavix sales, estimates for both products tend to be upwards of the billion-dollar blockbuster threshold. Some analysts are predicting peak sales for Brilinta as high as $2.5 billion-$3 billion.
April 09, 2009
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