AstraZeneca Cancer Drug Fails to Help Patients With Covid-19

(Bloomberg) -- AstraZeneca Plc said its blood-cancer medicine Calquence failed to help patients hospitalized with respiratory symptoms of Covid-19.

The group of patients taking the drug in addition to standard care didn’t show fewer deaths or respiratory failures, the U.K. drugmaker said in a statement. Details of the intermediate clinical trials will be presented in due course, the company said.

The Astra study is one of many programs to evaluate known treatments -- from antiviral drugs to plasma from recovered patients -- against the pandemic virus. Other disappointments include Sanofi’s rheumatoid arthritis medicine Kevzara.

Astra also has a Covid vaccine candidate under development with the University of Oxford, as well as a potential antibody treatment for the disease.

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