Novartis’ Entresto shows benefits in reducing heart failure death

Novartis has reported new clinical trial data offering fresh evidence of the benefits of its heart failure therapy Entresto.

Analyses of the data from the PARADIGM-HF trial have shown that Entresto consistently demonstrated benefit among heart failure patients with reduced ejection fraction, even among patients considered clinically stable, and regardless of background therapy.

Among both groups, patients taking Entresto had a 20 percent or greater reduction in cardiovascular death or heart failure hospitalisation compared to those taking an alternative therapy.

PARADIGM-HF was the largest clinical trial ever conducted in heart failure comparing Entresto to the current standard of care.

Vas Narasimhan, global head for drug development and chief medical officer at Novartis, said: "This new analysis shows that heart failure patients are never truly stable since in the majority of patients their first clinical event was death. We cannot afford to wait for patients to worsen to use Entresto."

The company received European regulatory approval for the drug in November 2015.