Astrazeneca plc reported results from its BaxHTN phase III trial showing aldosterone synthase inhibitor (ASI) baxdrostat met primary and secondary endpoints in patients with uncontrolled or treatment-resistant hypertension. The news marks a positive outcome of the company’s $1.8 billion gamble on Cincor Pharma Inc. in 2023, and keeps baxdrostat in the race with Mineralys Therapeutics Inc., which has said it anticipates a pre-NDA meeting this year for its ASI, lorundrostat, after reporting pivotal hypertension data in March 2025.
Parties to Astrazeneca plc’s potential $1.8 billion takeover of Cincor Pharma Inc. are keeping mum about contingent value rights included in the deal for baxdrostat, the phase III-bound aldosterone synthase targeter in the works to treat hypertension and chronic kidney disease. Another acquisition that captured headlines as the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference launched in San Francisco: the $1.4 billion-plus agreement whereby Chiesi Farmaceutici S.p.A. will take ownership of Amryt Pharma plc. And there was more, as Ipsen SA pledged $952 million to make Albireo Pharma Inc. its own.
Shares of Cincor Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ:CINC) took a serious hit on top-line findings from the completed phase II Halo study with once-daily oral baxdrostat, but the clinical program with the aldosterone synthase inhibitor remains on track, and an NDA submission is targeted for 2025. The stock closed at $14.11, down $12.42, or 46.8% after Waltham, Mass.-based Cincor informed Wall Street that results from Halo, which enrolled patients taking as many as two blood pressure medications at the maximally tolerated doses without satisfactory results, missed statistical significance on its primary endpoint evaluating change from baseline in mean seated systolic blood pressure in the intent-to-treat population, which included 249 patients.
Doctors will “unequivocally view as a major advance” Cincor Pharma Inc.’s oral baxdrostat for patients with treatment-resistant hypertension, said Deepak Bhatt, director of interventional cardiovascular programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor at Harvard Medical School. “There are a lot of these folks out there, and physicians don’t know what to do with them right now,” he said, noting that many end up in emergency rooms.
Cincor Pharma Inc.’s IPO at the start of the year underlined hopes for a new way to attack treatment-resistant hypertension and related diseases, as the Boston-based firm touted what one analyst called it ‘pipeline in a pill,” CIN-107, which selectively targets aldosterone synthase to lower aldosterone levels, in turn knocking down blood pressure.
Three biopharma IPOs rounded out the first week of the new year, with Amylyx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cincor Pharma Inc. and Vigil Neuroscience Inc. all pricing new Nasdaq issues Dec. 7. Taken together, the offerings raised about $482 million, though all received cool receptions, with only the most mature among them, Amylyx, (NASDAQ:AMLX) holding its ground at midday.
DUBLIN – Sofinnova Partners closed out its flagship Capital X fund at €472 million (US$550 million), providing further evidence that private equity investing in European biotechnology and medical technology remains in rude health. It represents, managing partner Graziano Seghezzi told BioWorld, one of the most successful fundraising campaigns in its 30-year history. “We went out and raised this fund in six months.”
