Myokardia Inc. CEO Tassos Gianakakos said officials at his company "anticipated and were prepared for" Sanofi SA's decision not to extend the partnership begun in 2014, instead returning rights to pivotal phase III-stage candidate mavacamten (previously known as MYK-461), an oral, allosteric modulator of cardiac myosin to treat obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), as well as MYK-491, which works similarly and is expected to yield phase IIa proof-of-concept data in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) before the end of this year.