The expertise and efforts of California-based Cytokinetics Inc. (CYTK:NASDAQ) in advancing its muscle-directed drug candidates for the heart and skeleton "could come to fruition over the next 12–18 months," Oppenheimer analyst Justin Kim wrote.
As early as next year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could approve the biopharma's lead drug candidate omecamtiv mecarbil as a heart failure treatment, Kim highlighted. Results of METEORIC, the Phase 3 clinical trial of this drug in this indication, are due out early in 2022. The analyst added that omecamtiv mecarbil's commercial potential in heart failure could be significant over the long term.
Despite this, Oppenheimer and others are paying more attention to another of Cytokinetics' drugs, aficamten (CK-274), a myosin inhibitor used as a treatment for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (oHCM), the market of which is open and huge, Kim noted. Also, aficamten has potential beyond oHCM in other cardiomyopathies sharing a similar phenotype.
As far as the timeline for aficamten, a Phase 3 study of this drug candidate in oHCM is slated to begin enrollment in early 2022.
Cytokinetics is advancing a third drug, reldesemtiv, as a potential treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
"Seeing a core value in aficamten for the Cytokinetics story, flanked by two additional underappreciated (albeit potentially higher risk) opportunities with heart failure and ALS, we are bullish," Kim concluded.
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