(Reuters) -AstraZeneca said on Friday its triple-combination inhaler Breztri Aerosphere met all main goals in two late-stage trials for uncontrolled asthma, showing clinically meaningful improvement in lung function.
The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker’s therapy, already approved for the treatment of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or “smoker’s lung”, was being compared with a dual-combination maintenance treatment in the trials.
The results come as AstraZeneca targets $80 billion in revenue by 2030, after first-quarter sales this week missed expectations on weaker oncology drug performance.
Asthma is a common but chronic lung disease that makes breathing difficult due to inflammation and muscle tightening. It affected 262 million people and caused 455,000 deaths in 2019, according to the World Health Organization.
“The results from the … trials are exciting and demonstrate the potential of budesonide/glycopyrronium/formoterol to evolve the standard of care to more effectively treat asthma in a single inhaled triple therapy,” said Alberto Papi, primary investigator of the studies, referring to the compounds in Breztri Aerosphere.
AstraZeneca said on Friday it would share detailed results from the trials with authorities and seek to broaden approvals for Breztri, which brought in sales of $978 million last year and competes with GSK’s Trelegy Ellipta.
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
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