Aug 27 (Reuters) – AstraZeneca said on Thursday its asthma drug Tezspire met the main goals of a late-stage trial in patients with a chronic inflammatory disorder of the oesophagus, offering a boost after a string of pipeline setbacks.
The study showed that Tezspire, developed with Amgen, significantly reduced inflammation in the oesophagus and eased difficulty in swallowing compared with a placebo in patients suffering with eosinophilic esophagitis, which affects more than 470,000 people in the United States.
CEO Pascal Soriot is steering AstraZeneca towards its target of $80 billion in annual sales by 2030, counting on up to 20 new drug launches as the company grapples with patent expiries and geopolitical challenges.
But the drugmaker has suffered several recent setbacks. In July, Wainua unexpectedly failed a heart disease trial, while a late-stage study of rare disease drug Ultomiris also failed. In May, a U.S. regulatory panel rejected its breast cancer drug camizestrant on trial design grounds.
AstraZeneca also halted an advanced study of experimental lung cancer drug volrustomig this month after a committee overseeing the trial said it was unlikely to meet its main goal.
The company’s shares were down 0.5% by 0729 GMT on Thursday, having fallen 14% since Wainua’s trial failure.
While the Tezspire results were encouraging, investors remain focused on upcoming results from two cancer trials that are seen as critical to AstraZeneca’s pipeline and to lifting pressure on the shares.
Tezspire is a monoclonal antibody that blocks a protein known as TSLP, which can trigger inflammation in conditions driven by eosinophils, a type of white blood cell, as well as severe asthma.
The drug is already approved in the United States, European Union and other countries as an add-on treatment for severe asthma and competes with Sanofi and Regeneron’s blockbuster drug Dupixent.
Tezspire generated $1.13 billion in sales for AstraZeneca in 2025.
(Reporting by Raechel Thankam Job in Bengaluru. Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Mark Potter)
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