AZ backs diabetes drug Farxiga with new cardio analysis

AstraZeneca continues to make the case for its Farxiga diabetes drug, highlighting a cardiology analysis that it hopes will convince more doctors to prescribe it in a highly competitive market. Farxiga (dapagliflozin) is AZ’s fifth biggest-selling drug, making up around 7% of product sales. Last year’s sales of nearly $1.4 billion were a 30% year-on-year increase, but its main US patent is set to expire next year and it's EU patent in 2023. So AZ is trying to make the most of the drug it acquired from Bristol-Myers Squibb after buying out the latter’s share in a diabetes partnership struck at the beginning of the decade. There is a range of other diabetes drugs that have the dual effect of reducing blood sugar, while at the same time reducing the risk of cardiovascular (CV) events in high-risk patients. These include Eli Lilly/Boehringer Ingelheim’s Jardiance (empagliflozin), a rival from the SGLT-2 inhibitor class and the first diabetes drug to show a cardioprotective effect in high-risk patients.