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Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Novartis is having a rough week. The Swiss pharma giant's experimental muscle-wasting drug del-desiran flopped in a late-stage trial — just one day after its cholesterol drug pelacarsen also failed — sending shares tumbling ~9% and erasing roughly $29.6 billion in market value. The twin setbacks raise serious questions about CEO Vas Narasimhan's M&A-driven pipeline strategy.
Novartis is having a rough week — and investors are not happy. The Swiss drugmaker reported back-to-back late-stage trial failures in just two days: first, its cholesterol-lowering drug pelacarsen failed to reduce heart attack and stroke risk in patients with high lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)], and then del-desiran, a muscle-wasting therapy acquired through its $12 billion purchase of Avidity Biosciences, failed to beat placebo in myotonic dystrophy type 1. Shares fell as much as 10% on the del-desiran news — one of the worst trading days in Novartis history — wiping ~$29.6 billion off its market cap.
The failures are a significant blow to CEO Vas Narasimhan, who has staked the company's growth strategy on rebuilding its pipeline through major acquisitions ahead of looming patent expirations, including for blockbuster heart drug Entresto. Novartis has now missed two of its three key pipeline readouts this year, leaving anti-inflammatory drug remibrutinib as the last major near-term hope. The pelacarsen failure also casts a shadow over rival Lp(a)-targeting drugs from Amgen and Eli Lilly, which are running similar late-stage trials.
By the Numbers:
Why it matters: With no approved treatments for either myotonic dystrophy type 1 or elevated Lp(a), patients in both disease areas are left without new options. For the broader industry, the failures raise the bar for rival therapies targeting these conditions and underscore the high-stakes nature of late-stage drug development — especially when billion-dollar acquisitions are on the line.
