AstraZeneca's (AZN.L) blockbuster diabetes drug Farxiga led to significant reductions in the risk of hospitalization and death in people with all types of heart failure, according to study data released on Saturday.The drug belongs to a class of medicines called SGLT2 inhibitors that were initially approved to treat type 2 diabetes.
Since then, the drugs have been shown to benefit patients with chronic kidney and heart disease and prevent heart attacks.Farxiga is the first heart failure medication to show mortality benefit across all forms of heart failure, the company said as reported by Reuters.Detailed data from a study called ‘DELIVER& evaluating Farxiga in patients with a form of heart failure characterized by mildly reduced or preserved ejection fraction was presented at the European Society of Cardiology congress in Barcelona.
Ejection fraction measures the heart's ability to pump oxygen-rich blood into the body.Farxiga met the study's primary goal, inducing a statistically significant reduction in the risk of heart-related death, heart failure hospitalization and urgent heart failure visits by 18%.A pooled analysis of DELIVER and another trial involving about 11,000 heart failure patients combined showed Farxiga reduced the risk of death from cardiovascular causes & including heart attacks & by 14%, and death from any cause by 10%.
The drug also cut the risk of hospital admissions for heart failure by close to a third.Heart failure occurs when the heart muscle becomes unable to pump blood as efficiently as it should, and can cause a range of serious health problems and death.
Of the estimated 64 million heart failure patients globally, roughly half have reduced ejection fraction, which is equal to or less than 40%.
The remainder have mildly reduced or preserved ejection fraction.The post AstraZeneca's Farxiga reduces death risk in heart failure patients first appeared on Ariana News.