AstraZeneca's Lupus Treatment Fails in Final-Stage Study

  • Inflammation blocker had been seen as rare new treatment
  • Drugmaker to evaluate data from trial later this year

Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

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AstraZeneca Plc’s experimental treatment for lupus failed to meet the goal of a late-stage trial, a blow to the drugmaker’s efforts to develop a rare new therapy for the potentially life-threatening disease.

Patients with moderate to severe cases of lupus who got the drug, called anifrolumab, didn’t see a statistically significant reduction in disease activity compared with those who received a placebo in the yearlong study, Cambridge, England-based AstraZeneca said Friday in a statementBloomberg Terminal.