𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

AstraZeneca has seen more than £20 billion wiped off its stock market value after being hit by a setback in a trial for a new drug to treat heart disease.

The FTSE 100 firm’s stock slumped by as much as 11% on Thursday morning after the pharmaceutical giant found the Wainua drug – which is being jointly developed with US firm Ionis – failed to meet a goal to reduce deaths related to heart disease when added to the normal standard of care given to patients.

It marked a rare drug disappointment for the Anglo-Swedish firm and a blow for investors, which hit the stock hard and saw it lead the wider FTSE 100 Index into the red.

Sharon Barr, Astra’s executive vice president of biopharmaceuticals research and development, said the trial was “designed to examine the role of Wainua, a gene silencer treatment, on top of today’s standard of care in reducing recurring cardiovascular events and mortality”.

She added: “Although the trial did not meet its primary objective, we believe the results support greater scientific understanding of treatment approaches for the hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide suffering from this progressive and often fatal condition.”

The trial was being run to look at treating a condition called transthyretin-mediated amyloid cardiomyopathy, which affects an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people worldwide, according to Astra.

Wainua is a gene silencer that suppresses the production of abnormal proteins in the liver, which can affect tissues elsewhere in the body.

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: “Heart disease is big business for pharmaceuticals, and today’s news is a major blow for AstraZeneca.

“Given the expected revenue benefits from this drug will not materialise for the foreseeable future, AstraZeneca’s ambitious targets for 2030 now look under serious threat.”

Neil Wilson, Saxo UK investor strategist, added: “This is undeniably a very big setback for AstraZeneca, which was counting on something like six billion US dollars in peak annual sales from the drug, called Wainua.

“Astra has many more irons in the fire but this is a disappointment and comes after US regulators delayed approval for a cancer drug.”