Heart failure treatment may be taken to a whole new level with a new drug.
The drug, developed by researchers at Novartis, may change the way heart failure is treated. The drug, currently only known as LCZ696 could replace drugs that have been treating heart failure for years.
The company sees this as a multibillion dollar seller because it has been shown to minimize the risk of cardiovascular death and hospital admissions by 20 percent. Investigators published the results of their study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"Given the survival advantage of LCZ696 over currently available drugs, once this drug becomes available, it would be difficult to understand why physicians would continue to use traditional (drugs)... for the treatment of heart failure," said Milton Packer one of the principle investigators on the study.
This drug comes at an optimal time for Novartis since its blood pressure pill Diovan faces generic competition.
Additionally, the study was one of the largest undertaken in the treatment of heart failure with more than 8,400 patients. It was compared to patients who took enalapril, an ACE inhibitor drug.
"We designed this study to try to change the cornerstone of treatment - to replace enalapril," said Packer. "The results are not only compelling, but exceeded our expectations."
They found that patients who took the LCZ696 drug were 20 percent less likely than those on enalapril to die of cardiovascular issues and 21 percent less likely to have to be admitted to the hospital.
Novartis' pharmaceuticals head David Epstein said this could potentially prevent 90,000 deaths per year in the US and Europe if patients were administered with the new drug.
The company hopes to seek approval for the drug in the US by the end of the year.
Heart failure is on the rise and affects 5 million people in the US. The economic toll from heart failure is estimated to be $45 billion.
The new drug is a twice-a-day pill that combines two medications to help block harmful substances to the heart and preserving the substances that protect the heart. Additionally, one of the medications involved also dilates blood vessels to allow the heart to pump more effectively.
