Translational Medicine
StockWatch: Novartis Loses More than Market Value After Phase III Failure
Del-desiran was one of three clinical setbacks for Novartis within a week. On September 4, the company and partner Ionis Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: IONS) acknowledged that their co-developed pelacarsen failed the Phase III Lp(a)HORIZON trial (NCT04023552) by missing its primary endpoint of reducing the risk, compared with placebo, of cardiovascular events. Two days earlier, Novartis paused eight trials assessing its autoimmune and neurological disease candidate rapcabtagene autoleucel (rap-cel), after three patients treated with the personalized, CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T) therapy died after experiencing immune effector cell-associated hemophagocytic syndrome.