Brilinta's disparities

AstraZeneca plc's Brilinta ticagrelor appears set to enter the acute coronary syndrome market after an FDA panel voted to recommend approval of the compound. But whether Brilinta can take significant share from market leader Plavix clopidogrel will likely depend on whether physicians care about a discrepancy in U.S. data, as well as more traditional barriers to entry like economics and physician habits.

In the Phase III PLATO trial, Brilinta met the primary endpoint of superiority to Plavix in time to first occurrence of any event from the composite of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke (9.8% vs. 11.7%, p<0.0001). The trial enrolled 18,624 ACS patients in 43 countries...