title: Emerging Therapies for Acute and Chronic Heart Failure: Hope or Hype?
abstract: Although the period from 1953 to 2001 resulted in the approval of more than 30 medications currently used to treat heart failure (HF), few novel drugs have been approved in the last decade. However, the investigational pipeline for HF medications once again appears promising. In patients with chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), ivabradine and valsartan/sucubitril (LCZ696) were recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Both agents have been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death and HF hospitalization. In the treatment of acute HF, serelaxin and ularitide are the farthest along in development. Both agents have demonstrated favorable effects on surrogate end points and preliminary data suggest a possible mortality benefit with serelaxin. Consequently, phase 3 trials are ongoing to evaluate the effect of serelaxin and ularitide on clinical outcomes. Given the poor history of recent investigational acute HF drugs that have advanced to phase 3/4 studies, enthusiasm for both serelaxin and ularitide must be tempered until these trials are completed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy, University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hanigan
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Practice, Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomic Research, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy, Chicago, IL, USA rdidom1@uic.edu.
authors.forename: Robert J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: DiDomenico
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D002908:Chronic Disease; D015507:Drugs, Investigational / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D015507:Drugs, Investigational
keywords: LCZ696; heart failure; investigational drugs; ivabradine; omecamtiv mecarbil; serelaxin; ularitide