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Oct 30, 2026Weekly roundupUpdated

AstraZeneca's FORTUNA misses in NASH as ARTEMIS kidney trial ends for lack of efficacy

This week's six registry updates include a failed NASH trial, a terminated kidney study, a completed heart failure trial, two recruiting studies, and a completed asthma claims analysis.

AstraZeneca's clinical trial registry saw six updates this week, ranging from a negative Phase 2b readout to new recruiting studies.

  • FORTUNA (NCT05809934), a completed Phase 2b trial of AZD2693 in non-cirrhotic NASH patients carrying the PNPLA3 148M risk allele, posted results showing 4 of 73 participants on the 25 mg dose and 1 of 69 on the 50 mg dose achieved NASH resolution without worsening fibrosis after 52 weeks, versus 5 of 74 on placebo, with p-values of 0.783 and 0.116 on the primary endpoint.1
  • ARTEMIS (NCT05746559), a Phase 3 trial of ravulizumab in chronic kidney disease patients undergoing cardiac surgery, was terminated after the sponsor discontinued the trial on 29-Apr-2026 due to lack of efficacy in the overall study population2, with results posted this week from 555 enrolled participants.
  • Re-PHIRE (NCT05737940), a completed Phase 2b dose-ranging study of AZD3427 in heart failure and WHO Group 2 pulmonary hypertension, evaluated change from baseline in pulmonary vascular resistance measured by right heart catheterization after 24 weeks of treatment3 in 260 participants, with results posted this week.
  • SAFIR3LibHERty (NCT06680596), a recruiting Phase 2 trial, is sponsored by UNICANCER with AstraZeneca as a collaborator; it tests trastuzumab deruxtecan in HR-positive, HER2-low or ultralow metastatic breast cancer patients who show persistent circulating tumor DNA after 4 weeks of standard CDK4/6 inhibitor therapy4, targeting 80 participants.
  • A new observational study (NCT07905287) sponsored by AstraZeneca is recruiting in China to prospectively collect real-world outcome data on hypophosphatasia, including quality of life, clinical manifestations, and patient-reported outcomes among Chinese HPP patients5, with an estimated enrollment of 200.
  • QUARTZ (NCT07787117), a completed retrospective claims-based study, compared asthma patients who switched from albuterol to Airsupra against those adding low-dose inhaled corticosteroids or leukotriene receptor antagonists, enrolling 8,681 participants6, with its last update posted October 26, 2026.

Written by readthrough’s AI from the linked primary sources and fact-checked against them automatically before publishing. Not investment advice.