Novartis stock falls over 10 percent after drug trial failure

Novartis shares fell more than 10 percent on Tuesday after an experimental drug called del-desiran failed a major clinical trial. The drug was being tested as a treatment for a rare condition that causes muscles to waste away. In the trial, it did not perform significantly better than a placebo.

This was the third serious trial failure for Novartis in one week. The day before, a cholesterol drug also failed in testing. The company has now missed two of its three most important drug trial results this year.

The share price drop removed around 29.6 billion US dollars from Novartis's total market value. Novartis had paid 12 billion dollars to acquire del-desiran and had expected it to become one of its biggest-selling products.