Late-stage results of Cytokinetics’ drug for a rare heart disease suggest it can compete with a similar treatment sold by Bristol Myers Squibb on efficacy and safety, and can also be dosed more conveniently, potentially making it a more attractive option for doctors if approved.
The 24-week Phase 3 trial tested the drug, a daily pill called aficamten, in patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or oHCM, a disease in which the heart has more difficulty pumping blood and patients experience fatigue, chest pain, and shortness of breath.
The full results, presented Monday at a heart failure conference of the European Society of Cardiology and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, affirm positive topline results announced last December. And while it’s difficult to compare directly between different trials, the results also show that aficamten led to a slightly greater magnitude of benefit on some metrics than what was seen in a pivotal trial of Bristol’s drug, Camzyos. That includes a metric that the Camzyos trial used as its primary endpoint.
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