AZ's Farxiga data kicks off race for SGLT2s in heart failure

Positive data for AstraZeneca's Farxiga dapagiflozin could signal the start of what is for now a two horse race to expand the SGLT2 class beyond diabetes and into heart failure. But the real opportunity in the indication may gain clarity next year when a competitor is expected to report data in heart failure patients with preserved ejection fraction -- a subpopulation with no currently approved therapies.

On Tuesday AstraZeneca plc (LSE:AZN; NYSE:AZN) said Farxiga was the first sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor to demonstrate a clinical benefit in a heart failure outcomes trial. In the Phase III DAPA-HF trial in about 4,700 chronic heart failure patients with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), Farxiga met the primary endpoint of a significant reduction of cardiovascular death or worsening of heart failure, defined as hospitalization or an urgent heart failure visit, vs. placebo...