Novartis scraps cholesterol drug trial in blow to UK life sciences ambitions
The Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis has ditched plans for a large clinical trial in the UK, in a further blow to the government’s efforts to make Britain an attractive place for research and investment after Brexit.
The company decided to scrap the Orion-17 trial of its cholesterol-lowering drug Leqvio, involving 40,000 patients in partnership with NHS England.
In an attempt to win wider approval for the drug, the trial was designed to show that it could prevent the first occurrence of major cardiovascular health problems in high-cholesterol patients, as part of a broader collaboration with the British health system.
“After careful evaluation, we have decided not to move forward with Orion-17,” the Swiss drugmaker said. “We continue to have very high ambitions for Leqvio.”
Novartis will instead pursue a different global trial with 14,000 volunteers, including in the UK. It said the Covid-19 pandemic was among the factors behind the decision as it had made it harder to make progress on the UK trial.
Analysts at Credit Suisse said the move was likely to reflect “slow progress in initial UK rollout to GPs in secondary prevention” – the process of spotting and treating a disease before it fully develops.
Novartis, the world’s sixth-largest pharma company by sales, has its UK head office in White City, west London, close to Imperial College London’s research campus. The company is known for its cancer and multiple sclerosis treatments and used to make the ADHD drug Ritalin.
The news came as the government announced the biggest changes to the way clinical trials are conducted in more than 20 years. Ministers hope to stem the decline in UK trials in recent years as the government clings to its declared ambition of creating a “life
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