FDA slaps clinical hold on AstraZeneca cancer drug amid heart safety scare in combo test

We found out, via a small and almost unnoticed ClinicalTrials.gov update today, that AstraZeneca suspended trial work on its experimental blood cancer drug AZD5991. Now, we have learned that things are in fact bleaker for the therapy.

AstraZeneca told Fierce Biotech that signs of a heart issue in a patient treated with AZD5991 were found, or, as the Big Pharma put it, “asymptomatic elevation in cardiovascular laboratory parameters,” specifically in one patient with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia who also had other comorbidities.