Here is STAT’s biotech scorecard, our regular ledger of stock-moving biotech events, for the second quarter:
When is “mid-year”? This is not an existential question. Practically speaking, when a drugmaker, let’s say Bridge Bio, tells investors that an important readout of all-cause mortality data from a clinical trial of its heart drug acoramidis is coming “mid-2023,” does that mean the end of June or the beginning of July? Is this a second-quarter event that should be included in this scorecard, or should it be pushed to the third quarter? Now, you know, just in case.
Here’s another important, mid-year event to start thinking about, even if results don’t arrive until later this summer: Novo Nordisk is conducting a large clinical trial to prove that its GLP-1 drug Wegovy, in addition to helping people lose weight, also improves cardiovascular health. The SELECT study enrolled 17,500 participants who were overweight or obese and had preexisting heart disease. The participants were then randomized to receive weekly injections of Wegovy or a matching placebo. The primary goal is to determine the extent to which Wegovy reduces the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and heart-related deaths. Wegovy is already a blockbuster drug based on weight loss alone, but proving an additional cardiovascular benefit could open the commercial floodgates.
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