Atacand filed for heart failure in US
pharmafile | July 8, 2004 | News story | |Â Â Â
AstraZeneca has submitted its cardiovascular drug Atacand for an additional US licence to treat heart failure.
Atacand (candesartan) is one of the angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) class competing in the crowded hypertension treatment area, and if granted, the new licence would help boost the brand's sales.
The company's submission is based on data from its CHARM study unveiled last year, which shows the drug cut deaths and serious illness in heart failure patients, something which no other drug in its class has demonstrated.
Adding Atacand to other hypertension treatments such as ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers was also shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death by an extra 15%.
Analysts say the licence would help AstraZeneca take on the market leading ARB, Novartis' Diovan, sales of which grew 46% to 2.4 billion in 2003, well ahead of Atacand's 32% growth to $750 million.
Novartis recently released results from its VALUE trial comparing Diovan with Pfizer's older hypertension drug Istin/Norvasc, but the results did not go all its way, the data suggesting the drugs were equally effective in preventing deaths due to cardiovascular disease.
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