Look back at pharma news in the week to August 2

Drug trial news last week included disappointment for Novartis, as its heart drug Entresto failed to show statistical significance in an HFpEF Phase III trial, but good news for Alkermes and Biogen with positive new data on Vumerity which showed statistical superiority over Tecentriq in multiple sclerosis. News that US pharma giant Pfizer would merge its generics operations with Mylan elicited significant comment. On the deal-making front, there was bad news for Sweden’s Alligator Biosciences, when partner Janssen, part of Johnson & Johnson, decided to return rights to their partnered cancer drug candidate ADC-1013.

Novartis’ Paragon falls short of perfection

Chalk up another flop in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), this time for  Novartis’s Entresto, commented Madeleine Armstrong on Vantage, the editorial arm of the Evaluate group. The company had tried to avoid other groups’ misfortunes in this tricky indication by experimenting with a novel primary endpoint in the PARAGON -HF trial, but in the end this came to naught.