Pharma giant AstraZeneca is to halt development of a treatment for Crohn’s disease.
The FTSE 100 group said it would stop investigating whether its drug brazikumab could be used to treat inflammatory bowel diseases, including Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis.
Crohn’s causes swelling in the digestive tract which can lead to abdominal pain, fatigue and malnutrition. Astra axed its programme, blaming delays to its development timeline caused by global events and ‘the context of the competitive landscape’.
‘Disappointing’: The FTSE 100 group said it would stop investigating whether its drug brazikumab could be used to treat inflammatory bowel diseases
Despite that, the shares edged up 0.1 per cent, or 10p, to 11,670p. Analysts at broker Shore Capital said the decision was ‘disappointing’ but also understandable.
Separately, Astra said its lynparza drug had secured approval in the US to treat prostate cancer after a clinical trial showed that, when combined with hormonal therapy drug abiraterone or steroid prednisolone, it cut the risk of disease progression or death by 76 per cent compared to using abiraterone alone.
The treatment is already approved in the EU and other countries. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, bar skin cancer, and mainly affects those aged over 50.
An estimated 1 in 8 men in the UK will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime and 12,000 a year die from it.
Lynparza is also used to treat cancers of the ovaries and fallopian tube and peritoneal, breast and pancreatic cancers.
