Novo Nordisk Halts Two Ziltivekimab Heart Trials — SkimNews
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- Novo Nordisk stopped its HERMES and ATHENA trials of ziltivekimab after a data monitoring committee determined they were unlikely to succeed, with the company notifying trial investigators on Friday.
- Ziltivekimab had already failed in the ZEUS trial, which showed the drug lowered inflammation markers but did not reduce major clinical complications including deaths and heart attacks.
- The anti-inflammation approach to improving cardiovascular health took another blow, as STAT frames the halt as compounding doubts about whether taming inflammation alone can prevent heart attacks and death.
- The data monitoring committee — not the company itself — triggered the stop, a standard trial-safety mechanism used when interim results suggest the study cannot meet its primary endpoint.
- Investors and physicians watching the inflammation hypothesis in cardiovascular medicine now face a pattern: consistent biomarker improvements that have not yet translated into hard clinical outcomes.
Why it matters: Ziltivekimab was one of the most-watched tests of the inflammation hypothesis in cardiovascular disease. With ZEUS already failing on hard endpoints and HERMES and ATHENA now halted for futility, the field loses its largest remaining late-stage trial of this mechanism and patients lose a hoped-for alternative to lipid-lowering therapy.
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