- 1% ( around 1 crore) of India’s population suffers from heart failure, around 50% of heart failure patients die within 5 years, say studies
- It is the first antidiabetic medicine proven to significantly reduce the risk of death and hospitalisation for heart failure.
- Heart Failure is the leading cause of hospitalisation for those over the age of 65 globally and represents a significant clinical and economic burden
PUNE : AstraZeneca India (AstraZeneca Pharma India Limited), a leading science-led biopharmaceutical company, today received the government approval for Dapagliflozin (Forxiga), for the treatment of patients with heart failure. This is the first antidiabetic drug approved for the treatment of heart failure (HF) and is the first drug proven to reduce the risk of Cardiovascular death and hospitalisation.
The approval is based on the results from the DAPA-HF study, that proved that Forxiga in addition to standard of care, reduced the risk of Cardiovascular death or the worsening of Heart Failure by 26%. About one-fourth patients in the study population were from Asian region including India.
Heart failure is a life threatening disease in which the heart muscle is unable to pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs for blood and oxygen. It affects around ~6.4 crore people worldwide (at least half of which have reduced ejection fraction), including at least 8 to 10 million patients in India. It is a chronic, degenerative disease where half of patients die within five years of diagnosis. Heart Failure remains as fatal as some of the most common cancers in both men (prostate and bladder cancers) and women (breast cancer). It is the leading cause of hospitalisation for those over the age of 65 and represents a significant clinical and economic burden. Further, the mean age of Heart Failure is 61.2 years in Indians, atleast a decade earlier than western population.
“Multiple studies have shown that Heart failure is becoming a major burden to people above 45yrs and tends to progressively increase with age. In the clinical setting, effective management of heart failure has been a long-time requirement. With the approval of Dapagliflozin for heart failure, physicians will now have an additional option to manage patients more effectively” Dr. Jagadish S Hiremath, Senior Interventional Cardiologist, Director Cath Lab, Ruby Hall Clinic
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