Eli Lilly's Diabetes Drug Jardiance Reduces Risk of Heart Complications

A three-year study of Eli Lilly’s (NYSE:LLY) diabetes drug Jardiance revealed that it reduces the risk of heart complications, the leading cause of death for diabetes. The drug delayed the amount of time it took for patients to die of cardiovascular disease, heart attack, or stroke.
According to an article on Pharmaceutical Processing:

Analysts are predicting a windfall for the makers of Jardiance, anticipating a big shift in which diabetes drugs doctors prescribe most. U.S. investors liked the news, too, driving up Lilly shares more than five percent. Jardiance, a once-a-day pill, was approved in the U.S. last August for patients with Type 2, on noninsulin dependent, diabetes.
 
[…] BernsteinResearch analyst Dr. Timothy Anderson wrote to investors that the positive result is a “holy grail of sorts” that should give Jardiance a competitive leg up. He wrote that he’d expected the trial to fail, and that the result was even more impressive because study participants were already on so many heart-protecting medicines. Anderson predicted Jardiance sales could hit $2 billion by 2020, twice what he’d expected, if the results are truly positive.
Lilly has reported just $30 million in sales for Jardiance in the first six months of this year, while privately held Boehringer Ingelheim hasn’t disclosed its take. Analyst Seamus Fernandez of Leerink Swann also called the result a “surprise as no diabetes drugs, including insulin, have demonstrated (cardiovascular) benefit previously” over three years.

Click here to read the full article on Pharmaceutical Processing.