March 2 (Reuters) – United Therapeutics said on Monday its experimental pill for a type of lung disease met the main goal in a late-stage study, sending its shares up 2.2% in premarket trading.
The drug, ralinepag, helped patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) – a rare and serious form of high blood pressure in the lungs – stay stable for longer, cutting the risk of the disease worsening by 55%.
The company said the drug also showed other benefits, including improvements in the distance patients could walk in a set period and a reduction by week 28 in a blood marker used to track stress on the heart.
In PAH, the small arteries in the lungs constrict, causing high blood pressure in the lungs and strain on the right side of the heart.
The company said ralinepag was generally well tolerated with side effects consistent with similar drugs and no new safety concerns identified.
United plans to submit a marketing application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by the second half of 2026.
If approved, ralinepag would enter a crowded market for PAH drugs, competing with Merck’s Winrevair, Johnson & Johnson’s Opsynvi, and Gilead Sciences’ Letairis. United also sells several FDA-approved medicines for PAH, including Tyvaso, Tyvaso DPI, Remodulin and Orenitram.
(Reporting by Padmanabhan Ananthan in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Diti Pujara)
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