Disappointing Clinical Trial Results Are Dragging Novartis, Amgen and the Dow Lower Tuesday

Disappointing Clinical Trial Results Are Dragging Novartis, Amgen and the Dow Lower Tuesday

Tue, September 8, 2026 at 5:33 PM GMT+3 1 min read

Key Takeaways

• Novartis shares dropped Tuesday after the company reported disappointing results from a clinical trial.

• Amgen shares lost ground too, pressuring the Dow.

U.S.-listed shares of Novartis are slumping Tuesday morning following disappointing clinical trial results from the Swiss drugmaker.

Novartis (NVS) shares were down 13% recently, dragging them nearly back to where they started the year. The company said this morning that an experimental drug called del-desiran failed to improve a key indicator for patients with myotonic dystrophy, a muscle loss disease.

Just days earlier, Novartis said a drug targeting a type of cholesterol that increases risk of heart disease failed in its objective to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes.

Amgen (AMGN), which is working on a similar cholesterol-targeting drug to the one that failed in Novartis' trial, saw its shares drop 9%. Amgen's decline is pressuring the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as the drugmaker holds the fourth-largest weight in the index.

Novartis chief medical officer Shreeram Aradhye said the company is "committed to identifying the most appropriate development path for the del-desiran program" and will discuss the trial data with regulators.

Clinical trials can hold an outsize importance on drugmakers' stocks, as they help investors project when new products could reach the market and contribute to sales. Novartis said in Tuesday's release that it still expects sales to post a compound annual growth rate of 5% to 6% through 2030.

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