Leerink says Eli Lilly news causes concern about Tectonic’s TX45 success

Leerink notes Eli Lilly (LLY) terminated its volenrelaxin CKD due to failure of a “related heart failure study,” which has caused significant concern about the likelihood of success of Tectonic Therapeutic’ (TECX) TX45 in PH-HFpEF. Recall that both volenrelaxin and TX45 are long-acting relaxin mechanism candidates for cardiopulmonary diseases. The firm learned from clinicaltrials.gov that Eli Lilly discontinued the Phase 2 program in CKD due to efficacy reasons, citing “Study was terminated due to a lack of foreseeable clinical benefit in the proposed chronic kidney disease population, following the termination of a related heart failure study that demonstrated no benefit in an overlapping patient group.” Leerink assumes that the related heart failure study is referring to volenrelaxin’s Phase 2 trial in HFpEF, although the clinicaltrials.gov listing for that study indicates it is still active. The firm has an Outperform rating on Tectonic Therapeutic shares.