AstraZeneca's Brilinta shows mortality benefit over gold-standard Plavix

There was good news for Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) yesterday, when the firm revealed positive results relating to its anticoagulant Brilinta (ticagrelor) from a blinded review of clinical data from patients in the PLATO trial who had died following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.

The blinded review found that, when compared to clopidogrel (French drugmaker Sanofi’s blockbuster blood thinner Plavix) Brilinta was more commonly associated with fewer cardiac, bleeding or infectious complications that directly caused or contributed to death following CABG. These data were presented at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress in Paris, France, on August 29, which was a public holiday in the UK, but this morning, AstraZeneca’s shares rose 2.2% to £28.74.

“These data may help to further understand the factors that contribute to the ability of ticagrelor to provide superior outcomes over clopidogrel in acute coronary syndrome patients, including when a surgical intervention like CABG is required,” said Christoph Varenhorst, a researcher at the Uppsala Clinical Research Center in Sweden.