New heart failure treatment approved by NICE

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The UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has approved a new heart failure medication, finerenone, expected to benefit nearly 300,000 patients by reducing worsening heart failure events and potentially lowering cardiovascular deaths.

Almost 300 000 patients will be eligible for a new heart failure drug after its approval by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).In final draft guidance NICE recommended the pill finerenone as an option for adults with symptomatic chronic heart failure with preserved or mildly reduced ejection fraction to reduce the risk of unplanned admission to hospital.1Adding finerenone to usual care reduces the total number of worsening heart failure events, including the need for people with heart failure to visit hospital urgently or having to stay in hospital, by about 18% when compared with a placebo, NICE said.Finerenone may also reduce the risk death from a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack or stroke, or other causes, a study published in 2024 found, although the evidence for this is more uncertain, NICE noted.2The drug is a mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA), a class of drugs already recommended...