Novartis drug gives pain relief in gouty arthritis

ZURICH: Novartis AG's prospective gout treatment gives patients better pain relief and significantly cuts the risk of new attacks, two late stage studies showed, giving the drugmaker's pipeline another boost.

Novartis is banking on such new products like recently launched multiple sclerosis pill Gilenya, to help it offset patent losses on big sellers such as blood pressure treatment Diovan.

Ilaris, or ACZ885, could become a blockbuster, Trevor Mundel, global head of development at Novartis, told Reuters on Wednesday.

The medicine is already approved to treat a rare inflammatory disorder known as Cryopyrin-Associated Periodic Syndromes (CAPS) and Novartis is also looking at its use in Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (SJIA).

"I think it would be the three indications together that we have coming, so the CAPS, the gouty arthritis and the juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, where we'll have that data ready for submission at the end of the year. So I think you put those together and I believe it will be a blockbuster, " Mundel said.

The positive data also vindicates Novartis' targeted drug development approach, which involves the company working first on one indication and later expanding the drug's use to treat other diseases, Mundel said.

Novartis said the studies showed patients taking Ilaris had less pain and the risk of new attacks were reduced by up to 68 percent compared to those taking an injectable steroid to treat gouty arthritis attacks, which can last for a week or more.

The studies involved more than 450 gouty arthritis patients for whom the standard anti-inflammatory therapies, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or colchicine were inadequate or inappropriate, Novartis said.

"As gout is a quite a common disease and many people cannot be treated by established treatment options, the market is quite significant. It will be shared with a similar drug, rilonacept, from the U.S. biotech company Regeneron," Sarasin analyst David Kaegi said.

Gout is a serious, chronic and progressive inflammatory disease that affects 1-4 percent of adults. It is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis in adults and can cause chronic disability and joint destruction.

Novartis submitted filings for Ilaris in gouty arthritis patients with limited treatment options in the EU last year and in the United States, Canada and Switzerland in the first quarter of this year.

The drugmaker said scientists have recently learned that the root cause of pain in gouty arthritis is interleukin-1 beta and Ilaris specifically targets this.

The group is also studying Ilaris in other diseases in which IL-1 beta plays a role in causing inflammation, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

The results of the study will be presented at this year's European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Congress in London.

At 1531 GMT, Novartis shares were trading 0.3 percent higher, while the European healthcare index was up 0.9 percent.

Copyright Reuters, 2011