Gilead’s Liver-Drug Setback Clouds $35 Billion Dream
A trial failure adds to doubts about the drugmaker’s focus on NASH treatments as a golden goose.
Back to the drawing board.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
The liver disease nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, is pegged as pharma’s next big market. Drugmakers are in a race to develop medicines that could potentially treat millions of patients and generate as much as $35 billion in theoretical sales. Few have been as aggressive in that pursuit as Gilead Sciences Inc., which has multiple drugs for the condition in its research pipeline. One, though, might soon be destined for the reject shelf.
Gilead announced late Monday that its most advanced candidate, selonsertib, badly failed a late-stage trial. It adds to a growing roster of challenges for its incoming CEO, and to doubts about whether NASH is a golden goose for Gilead or anyone else.