Thousands in heart drug boost

The twice-a-day pill – which costs £10 a week – is already licenced and GPs will be able to start prescribing it to heart failure patients immediately.

More than 700,000 UK adults over the age of 45 have heart failure, which leaves the organ too weak to pump blood around the body efficiently. A further 200,000 are undiagnosed.

But a study published yesterday showed the drug – called ivabradine – cuts the risk of death from heart failure by 26 per cent.

Professor Martin Cowie, consultant cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, who led the UK arm of the study, said the results had convinced him to change his clinical practice.

The drug could save 10,000 lives a year at a conservative estimate, said Prof Cowie.

“The evidence represents a significant clinical breakthrough in the management of heart failure and is incredibly important information for patients with this condition,” he said. “We now know that more lives can be saved and improved simply by adding ivabradine to their current treatment in order to take some of the strain off the heart.

“It is vital that the results of this study are implemented and ivabradine is used as part of standard heart failure treatment as soon as possible.” Heart failure is often triggered by other problems such as a heart attack. Around 68,000 new cases are diagnosed each year and around 40 per cent die after just a year.

Treatment for those who are admitted to hospital costs the NHS £625million a year. Patients are commonly prescribed beta blockers, which lower blood pressure, but many suffer side-effects. Ivabradine, which works by lowering the number of heart beats per minute rather than blood pressure, could be used as an alternative.

The drug is already available in the UK and used for patients with angina, or chest pain, but only 10 per cent are prescribed the drug. Drug regulators said yesterday it would need a separate licence to be used in treatment for heart failure but GPs may use their discretion to prescribe the pill “off-label” before the licence is approved.

The new study into ivabradine, presented at the European Society of Cardiology conference in Stockholm, involved 6,500 patients in 37 countries over a two-year period. Some took a placebo while others took ivabradine. The participants also used their standard treatment.

The number admitted to hospital was 16 per cent among those taking the new pill, compared to 21 per cent taking a placebo. The number who died of heart failure was three per cent, compared to five per cent taking the dummy pill.

Dr John Teerlink, of the University of California, said ivabradine should not be treated as a wonder drug.

But a report in medical journal The Lancet said: “Ivabradine substantially and significantly reduced major risks.” And the findings were welcomed by the British Heart Foundation.

Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director, said: “This important study suggests that a new drug, that works by lowering heart rate, may offer improvements over currently available treatments. Further studies are now needed.”

NHS figures show a year’s course of ivabradine costs about £500.