A Novartis drug vaulted from overlooked to potential blockbuster yesterday after a study unexpectedly showed it could reduce heart troubles in a group of high-risk patients.
The company’s canakinumab, combined with regular care, cut the chance of suffering from heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular deaths in people who’d suffered a prior heart incident and had thickened arteries, the Basel, Switzerland-based drug maker said in a statement. The stock surged the most in more than six months.
The unsung medicine, which Novartis sells for rare diseases and some unusual forms of arthritis, was expected to fail the test, Jeffrey Holford, an analyst at Jefferies in New York, wrote in a note to clients. Instead, the study’s results may shift the focus of heart care away from battling cholesterol and help roughly quadruple the drug’s revenue.
“This could end up becoming a multi-billion dollar product,” said Tim Anderson, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein & Co, citing a previous consensus of just over $400mn in peak sales in a note entitled “another rabbit out of the hat.”
Helvea analyst Bruno Bulic figures annual revenue could exceed 2bn Swiss francs ($2.1bn) at its peak with the heart indication, up from an estimate of $500mn without. The medicine garnered sales of $283mn last year.
Novartis shares climbed as much as 3.1% in Zurich trading, the most since December 9, 2016. They rose 2.9% to 82.15 Swiss francs at 12:47pm.
The drug maker only summarised the main results from the study, saying it would release details at a medical meeting later this year. 
Called Cantos, it involved following more than 10,000 patients over about six years who had the medicine injected every quarter.
Heart attack survivors have a high risk of relapse: about a quarter of them will suffer another cardiovascular event within five years, according to Novartis. The medicine, also known as Ilaris, works by targeting inflammation, which may shift treatment efforts into an entirely new direction.
“So far, anti-inflammatory approaches have been largely neglected while cholesterol-lowering strategies took centre stage,” Helvea’s Bulic said in a note. “The demonstration of a positive effect with Ilaris in lowering cardiovascular risk is therefore a groundbreaking discovery likely to transform the therapeutic paradigm.”
The Swiss drug maker will now sift through the data and discuss them with regulatory agencies, Vas Narasimhan, global head of drug development, said in the statement.



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