AstraZeneca Abandons Fish Oil Pill for Bad Cholesterol

(Bloomberg) --

AstraZeneca Plc will stop testing a fish-oil pill for a form of harmful cholesterol that was in the most advanced and expensive stage of clinical trials.

The medicine, called Epanova, didn’t stand a very high likelihood of showing a benefit when combined with a statin for patients at risk of heart disease due to high levels of LDL (or bad) cholesterol, Astra said in a statement Monday.

Epanova, gained in Astra’s 2013 takeover of Omthera Pharmaceuticals, is a prescription omega-3 capsule approved to treat high levels of triglycerides, which also clog up patients’ arteries. Fish oils contain fatty acids that help combat deposits in blood vessels.

“Epanova would have rounded out Astra’s growing suite of differentiated cardiovascular disease assets,” Andrew Baum, an analyst at Citi, wrote in a note to clients. He cited medicines such as Brilinta for heart disease, Farxiga, a diabetes drug that’s also approved for heart failure, and roxadustat, an anemia treatment.

A write-down of as much as $100 million related to inventories will impact core earnings in the fourth quarter of 2019, Astra said. The company will review the drug’s $533 million value as an intangible asset. Astra shares were little changed in London.

The failure is “a disappointment,” but isn’t having much impact on the stock because the drug’s estimated contribution to future sales was modest, according to Citi’s Baum. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expected the medicine to generate peak revenue of $145 million in 2023.

To contact the reporters on this story: Marthe Fourcade in Paris at mfourcade@bloomberg.net;Erin Roman in London at eroman16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, John Lauerman

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