Entresto. That’s the brand name Novartis has chosen for LCZ696, its new heart failure drug that is expected to be a blockbuster. The name won’t be final until official confirmation, which comes with FDA approval. But Novartis will introduce the name for the first time this weekend in presentations at the European Society of Cardiology Heart Failure meeting in Seville, Spain. FDA approval of Entresto is expected…
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Novartis’ Summer Blockbuster LCZ696 Gains A Name, Skips An Advisory Panel
May 22, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Slow Start For ‘Blockbuster’ Heart Failure Drug Entresto
January 28, 2016 by 2 Comments
Entresto, the new heart failure drug from Novartis that is widely expected to be a blockbuster, is off to an exceptionally slow start. Approved last July, the drug, formerly known as LCZ 696, had sales of only $21 million in 2015, only $5 million of which came in the fourth quarter. Despite low expectations in the early…
2015: The Year We Finally Cured Heart Disease!
December 27, 2015 by 1 Comment
Editor’s note: Larry was too depressed to write the 2015 yearly review. Veteran healthcare journalist and eternal optimist Candide Corn volunteered to take over the task this year. Candide’s motto is “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” What a great year for cardiology! The year brought us an unending…
PARADIGM Investigators Estimate Entresto Prolongs Life by 1-2 Years
December 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Treatment with Entresto (the combination of sacubitril and valsartan, formerly known as LCZ 696) instead of an ACE inhibitor will add approximately one to two years of life for most people taking the drug, according to new estimates published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Because of the time and population limitations of clinical trials it…
Novartis Heart Failure Drug Gains Approval In Europe
November 24, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Entresto, the novel heart failure drug from Novartis, has now been approved in Europe. The company said the drug, a twice-a-day combination of sacubitril and valsartan (formerly known as LCZ 696), had been approved by the European Commission for the treatment of people with symptomatic chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). The news follows previous approval of the drug by…
Slow Start For New Novartis Heart Failure Drug Entresto
November 2, 2015 by 1 Comment
Initial sales of Entresto (the combination of sacubitril and valsartan, formerly known as LCZ696) have been slow. In the first few months after its approval in July the drug only had $16 million in sales, the drug’s manufacturer, Novartis, reported last week during its quarterly earnings report. The novel heart failure drug is widely expected to be…
Cost Effectiveness Of Entresto And CardioMEMS Evaluated
September 14, 2015 by 1 Comment
The new Novartis heart failure drug Entresto (the combination of sacubitril and valsartan, formerly known as LCZ696) is cost effective but the CardioMEMS monitoring system (St. Jude Medical) is not, according to draft reports issued last week by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER). The same organization released a widely discussed report about the cost…
Hot Lines, Simultaneous Publications, And The Decline Of Medical Meetings
August 29, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Back in the Dark Ages when I covered big medical conferences (like the European Society of Cardiology meeting now getting underway in London) it was necessary to attend the sessions, roam the halls, and talk to doctors. There were no late-breaking or hot line sessions and there were certainly no simultaneous publications in journals. (If memory…
Novartis Heart Failure Drug Gains Speedy FDA Approval
July 7, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Entresto, Novartis’s novel heart failure (HF) drug, gained FDA approval earlier today. The approval arrived 6 weeks ahead of the drug’s action date. Formerly known as LCZ 696, the drug had already received a fast track designation and an expedited review under the FDA’s priority review program.Novartis said the wholesale acquisition cost of Entresto will be $12.50 per day, less discounts….
New Heart Drug From Novartis: Will It Raise The Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease?
February 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment
LCZ696 is a heart failure drug from Novartis that many observers think will gain FDA approval later this year and go on to become a blockbuster. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to the drug’s success is the fear that it might raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Now a new article in a top cardiology journal lays out the detailed basis for…
An Emerging Consensus About Novartis’s New Potential Blockbuster
January 7, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last year it became clear that Novartis had a potential blockbuster with its new heart failure drug, LCZ696, which is an angiotensin receptor- neprilysin inhibitor (ARNi) consisting of the company’s own well-known angiotensin receptor blocker valsartan (Diovan) and a novel compound, the neprilysin inhibitor sacubitiril. The results of the PARADIGM trial, which was stopped early because of a large and highly significant reduction in…
Cardiology Drugs Of The Year: New, Old, And Not-So-Funny
December 18, 2014 by 1 Comment
New Drug Of The Year: LCZ696 from Novartis Old Drug of the Year: Ezetimibe Not-So-Funny Drug of the Year: Ivabradine … Click here to read the full post on Forbes. …
PARADIGM-HF Establishes a New Paradigm for Heart Failure Treatment
August 30, 2014 by Leave a Comment
So far as I can tell the only problem with PARADIGM-HF is that the results are so good that it’s boring. Anyone interested can reasonably assume that what they hear or read about PARADIGM-HF — and cardiologists will be seeing and hearing an awful lot about it — will be overwhelmingly positive. Briefly, the trial did…
Predicting PARADIGM-HF, Or What To Expect When You’re Expecting
August 27, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The wait is almost over. For the last 5 months the most eagerly awaited trial in the cardiovascular universe has been PARADIGM-HF, the large (8,500 patient) trial of a new and novel heart failure drug from Novartis. If reality lives up to the early hope and hype, the drug, LCZ696, could completely reshape the heart failure landscape…
ESC Hot Lines: First Real Data On Promising Novartis Heart Failure Drug
July 1, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The first real details about the much-anticipated novel new heart failure drug from Novartis will kick off this year’s Hot Line sessions at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona, Spain. The meeting runs from August 30 until September 3. As I have previously reported, the PARADIGM-HF trial was stopped because of a highly statistically significant reduction…
A New Novartis Heart Failure Drug Might Be A Blockbuster
April 1, 2014 by Leave a Comment
I try to avoid using words like “blockbuster” and “breakthrough” when writing about new drugs and treatments. I’ve been disappointed too many times. But, though they’ve been in short supply lately in cardiovascular medicine, sometimes there really are breakthroughs and blockbusters. In my career writing about cardiovascular medicine I’ve seen the introduction of the ACE…
Novartis Trial Was Stopped Early Because Of A Significant Drop In Cardiovascular Mortality
March 31, 2014 by 1 Comment
The largest-ever trial in heart failure was stopped early because of a highly statistically significant reduction in cardiovascular mortality, according to one of the trial’s two primary investigators. Earlier today I reported that the PARADIGM-HF trial testing LCZ696, a novel, first-in-class Angiotensin Receptor Neprilysin Inhibitor (ARNI), had been stopped early because the trial had demonstrated…
Early Success For Novel Novartis Heart Failure Drug
March 31, 2014 by Leave a Comment
A large clinical trial testing a novel compound from Novartis for chronic heart failure has been stopped early for efficacy. In a press release Novartis said the Data Monitoring Committee had recommended early closure of the PARADIGM-HF trial because the trial had demonstrated a significant reduction in the combined primary endpoint of cardiovascular death and…
Get Ready For Munich: ESC Releases List Of Hot Line Sessions
July 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Here is the list of Hot Line sessions scheduled for the European Society of Cardiology ESC) meeting in Munich:…
Article explores complexity of PCI public reporting in Massachusetts
April 1, 2009 by Leave a Comment
An article in today’s Boston Globe by Liz Kowalczyk explores the twists and turns of public reporting of PCI results in Massachusetts. Kowalczyk highlights the dilemma faced by Massachusetts General interventional cardiologist Kenneth Rosenfeld when he was forced to make a quick decision about a complex case. Christopher Bader, 54, arrived at Mass General after…
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