Cytokinetics’ PhIII cardiomyopathy win sets up showdown with Bristol Myers and sparks M&A speculation

Cy­to­ki­net­ics’ ex­per­i­men­tal med­i­cine for a ge­net­ic heart con­di­tion known as hy­per­trophic car­diomy­opa­thy helped pa­tients do sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter on an ex­er­cise test that’s used to mea­sure heart func­tion, the biotech com­pa­ny an­nounced Wednes­day, send­ing the stock surg­ing and set­ting off spec­u­la­tion about whether it is the sec­tor’s next big deal tar­get.

The late-stage study re­sults put the drug known as afi­camten one step clos­er to com­pet­ing with Camzyos — a sim­i­lar med­i­cine from Bris­tol My­ers Squibb that’s al­ready on the mar­ket for the dis­ease, which leads the heart mus­cle to be­come thick and stiff, ob­struct­ing blood flow. Bris­tol My­ers has pre­vi­ous­ly said that it ex­pects Camzyos to have peak sales of more than $4 bil­lion a year af­ter be­ing ap­proved in 2022.

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