A $5B CHOLESTEROL DRUG JUST MISSED ITS BIGGEST TEST

🔴 Analysts had modelled $4 billion to $5 billion in peak annual sales for the drug. Then the trial missed.

Novartis said after Friday's bell that pelacarsen, developed with Ionis Pharmaceuticals, lowered a particularly harmful form of cholesterol in a late-stage trial but failed to significantly improve cardiovascular outcomes, CNBC reports.

The target is Lp(a). It was discovered in 1963. Levels are set almost entirely by genetics and barely move with diet or exercise. Researchers later found people with elevated Lp(a) faced more than twice the risk of a heart attack. Roughly one in five people worldwide are affected, and there is no approved targeted treatment.

That is why the race is worth billions, and why the miss travelled.

📉 Ionis sank 10% in extended trading Friday. Amgen fell about 5%. NewAmsterdam Pharma dropped 12%. Novartis itself fell 3% on Monday, a contained move analysts put down to investors already pricing the trial as risky.

Barclays noted Novartis had said even a 13% benefit would have been statistically significant, and that the release suggests the drug fell materially short of that.

Citi called the Lp(a) hypothesis weakened but not disproven, saying more data is needed to know whether the failure sits with the drug's mechanism, the trial design, or the whole theory.

More than 8,000 patients were enrolled, all already on optimized care. Jefferies said improving standards of care are cutting cardiovascular events anyway, making it harder and costlier for experimental drugs to show an added benefit.

Amgen's olpasiran faces the clearest read-through. Lilly's lepodisiran is being tested in a broader group and matters less to Lilly's valuation.

Full results are coming at a medical congress.

Would you keep funding this class, or walk away?

#Novartis #Amgen #EliLilly #pharma #causeanuproar