Astra results show multi-billion-dollar potential

The pharmaceuticals company's cardiovascular drug is set to become a blockbuster

Damien Conover | 07-09-09 | E-mail Article

At the European Society of Cardiology meeting last week, Boehringer Ingelheim and AstraZeneca reported strong Phase III data on their cardiovascular drugs dabigatran and ticagrelor, respectively. The results suggest the drugs could develop into important blockbusters. Further, the new drugs are likely to emerge as tough competitors to Johnson & Johnson's Xarelto and Eli Lilly's Effient.

Boehringer Ingelheim's dabigatran reduced strokes by a third compared with standard of care warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation. While dabigatran patients also reported some side effects such as higher rates of myocardial infarction and gastrointestinal problems, overall we expect the drug's strong efficacy and the lack other treatments for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation should mean the drug will reach the market and develop into a blockbuster. From a competitive perspective, we expect Johnson & Johnson's Xarelto will stack up well against dabigatran on the basis of Xarelto's earlier-stage data. Johnson & Johnson and partner Bayer expect to report Xarelto stroke prevention data in 2010 with their Rocket study in atrial fibrillation.

Turning to Astra's ticagrelor data, we believe the favourable results will create a new multi-billion-dollar drug for the company and probably limit the market potential for Lilly's rival drug, Effient. However, we don't believe ticagrelor will gain the lion's share of the antiplatelet market. Even though the top-line numbers suggested a benefit for ticagrelor over Effient, the drugs look very similar in bleeding side effect rates and efficacy when compared in only percutaneous coronary intervention populations. We expect data from Lilly's Trilogy study in October 2011, which should reaffirm Effient on equal footing compared with ticagrelor in the broader patient population of acute coronary syndrome. Given that both drugs appear superior to current market leader Plavix, we believe the drugs will penetrate Plavix's approximately $9 billion in annual sales and both develop into blockbusters.

Damien Conover, CFA, is a Morningstar stock analyst, based in the United States.

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