Novo Nordisk shares plunge 10% after Alzheimer’s trial fails to deliver results
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The news: Shares in pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk slumped on Monday after the company announced that one of its diabetes drugs failed to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in late-stage trials.
The numbers: Shares in the company plunged over 10% in Copenhagen on Monday (11:30pm AEDT).
The context: Novo said in a statement on Monday that data from two of its large-scale clinical trials studying the effectiveness of treating early-stage Alzheimer’s disease did not show any significant improvement across the almost 4,000 patients enrolled in the study.
The company said: “While treatment with semaglutide resulted in improvement of Alzheimer’s disease-related biomarkers in both trials, this did not translate into a delay of disease progression.”
The trial investigated Novo’s diabetes drug Rybelsus, which contains the same active ingredient as weight-loss and diabetes drugs WeGovy and Ozempic, to assess whether it could lower the rate of cognitive decline in patients by at least 20%.
Novo will now discontinue a one-year extension of the studies.
What they said: “Based on the significant unmet need in Alzheimer’s disease as well as a number of indicative data points, we felt we had a responsibility to explore semaglutide’s potential, despite a low likelihood of success. We are proud to have conducted two well-controlled phase 3 trials in Alzheimer’s disease that meet the highest standards of research and rigorous methodology,” said Martin Holst Lange, chief scientific officer and executive vice president of Research and Development at Novo Nordisk.
The source: Novo Nordisk
