AstraZeneca counts $445m cost of ditching new drug

The bad news just keeps coming for AstraZeneca, after the drugmaker today warned it will have to write off $445 million (£286 million) after abandoning development of one of its newest drugs.

The pharmaceutical firm said it would withdraw its license application for Motavizumab — aimed at preventing the children's lung disease respiratory syncytial virus — with the US regulator the Food and Drug Administration.

It will take the $445 million charge in its fourth-quarter results.

Astra made the application for Motavizumab in January 2008, but in June this year FDA advisers said the medicine should not be approved because studies linked it to allergic reactions and did not show it worked better than the firm's older medicine Synagis which runs out of patent in 2015.

The news comes four days after the FDA refused to approve Astra's potential new blockbuster heart medicine, Brilinta.