Crestor boost for AstraZeneca

The Anglo-Swedish drug group AstraZeneca got a boost yesterday when its anti-cholesterol treatment, Crestor, was shown to cut the chances of heart attacks and strokes dramatically among patients with healthy cholesterol levels.

The UK's second biggest drugs maker said that the results of its own two year Jupiter study has shown that the risk of heart attacks among those without high cholesterol levels, but who are still susceptible to cardiac arrests, was cut by 54 per cent. The threat of strokes among the same group of people fell by 48 per cent.

The group's share price closed up 3.2 per cent at 2,770p, with analysts arguing that sales of Crestor could be pushed well above the $2.8bn achieved last year.