Pharma giant AstraZeneca (AZN) has seen at least £10bn wiped from its stock market valuation following the failure of its MYSTIC lung cancer trial.
Shares in the FTSE 100 drugs titan tumble 16.5% to £42.70 after it reveals the combination of durvalumab and tremelimumab immunotherapies fails to help patients in the advanced stages of lung cancer.
Despite this setback, AstraZeneca will continue assessing two additional primary endpoints of overall survival for Imfinzi monotherapy and the Imfinzi and tremelimumab combination.
The results have not affected AstraZeneca's full year 2017 sales guidance, reiterated as a low to mid single-digit percentage decline.
Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White is not deterred by the failed drug trial and maintains his ‘buy’ recommendation on AstraZeneca.
He says the positive outcome of AstraZeneca’s PACIFIC trial in ‘the unmet need of inoperable lung cancer patients has been enormously helpful for the immuno-oncology franchise overall.’
The analyst is also impressed with the ‘strong launch’ of oncology drugs Lynparza and Tagrisso, which generated $59m and $232m of sales respectively in the first half of 2017.
However, the drugs giant is struggling in the face of competition and pricing pressure after losing exclusivity for its Crestor and Seroquel XR products, whose sales fell 43% and 62% in the half to June.
