AstraZeneca asthma drug fails to meet primary endpoint

AstraZeneca said on Wednesday that its asthma drug Tralokinumab did not meet its primary endpoint in a late-stage study.

The company said Tralokinumab did not show a significant reduction in the annual rate of asthma attacks in the overall population of severe, uncontrolled asthma patients, compared with placebo, in the first of two pivotal Phase III trials.

Sean Bohen, executive vice president of Global Medicines Development and chief medical officer, said: "Severe asthma is a heterogeneous disease with significant unmet needs and we will now await the STRATOS 2 results in the second half of 2017 to explore the potential to treat a sub-group of uncontrolled asthma patients with tralokinumab."

Astra said asthma affects 315 million individuals worldwide and up to 10% of asthma patients have severe asthma, which may be uncontrolled despite high doses of standard-of-care asthma controller medicines. Severe, uncontrolled asthma is debilitating and potentially fatal with patients experiencing frequent attacks every year and significant limitations on lung function and quality of life.

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