(Bloomberg) -- AstraZeneca Plc’s Farxiga helped stave off death in a study of patients with heart failure, opening the door to a new use for the diabetes treatment.

Adding the drug to standard therapy reduced the risk of death or worsening heart failure in patients with and without diabetes, according to a statement Tuesday. The shares rose as much as 1.9% in London.

Drugmakers are looking for a heart-health edge to gain an advantage amid stiff competition among therapies for type 2 diabetes, called SGLT-2 inhibitors, that reduce the body’s absorption of sugar. Astra’s is the first such drug to show benefit in patients with heart failure alone, said Elisabeth Bjork, who oversees late-stage development of the company’s heart disease and diabetes drugs.

Heart failure affects about 64 million people worldwide, and about one in two patients die within five years of diagnosis. Astra conducted the study in sufferers whose hearts’ ability to push blood out was dangerously reduced, which occurs in about half of patients.

“There’s enormous unmet medical need in this population,” she said in an interview. Despite the existence of many approved treatments, death rates among people with the condition are similar to those with breast and bladder cancer, she said.

The late-stage study results will help Farxiga compete with others in the same class -- Johnson & Johnson’s Invokana and Eli Lilly & Co.’s Jardiance. Astra is conducting further studies of the drug in heart-failure patients whose pumping ability is better preserved, which could further widen its use.

Analysts expect about $2.6 billion in sales of the Astra drug by 2023. Expanded use of Farxiga in heart failure could add to those numbers, according to Sam Fazeli, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.

Diabetes disrupts the body’s ability to control blood sugar, and chronic high levels damage the heart, blood vessels and other organs. Farxiga reduces the body’s absorption of salt and water in addition to sugar, which may explain some of its positive impact in heart failure, Bjork said.

Astra said it will discuss the results with regulators and present details at a forthcoming medical meeting.

(Updates with company comment from third paragraph.)

To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in London at jlauerman@bloomberg.net

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