Fifteen years ago, I referred myself to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to be evaluated for a septal myectomy by what was at the time, one of the country’s few expert centers for the treatment of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I traveled to Mayo from my native state, Kentucky, on a brief hiatus from a well-established career in health policy in Washington, DC.
Cytokinetics has announced that its experimental drug aficamten, currently in trials as a potential treatment for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, has received breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA. This designation is awarded by the FDA to certain drugs which may offer substantial improvement to patients over available therapies. The designation could shorten the FDA approval process for the drug by about 4 months.
You can read more about Cytokinetics and aficamten in these older posts from HCMBeat:
Interview with Dr. Martin Maron about Cytokinetic’s Drug Aficamten
Cytokinetics Announces Positive Results from REDWOOD-HCM Phase 2 Clinical Trial
Cytokinetics Moves Forward with HCM Drug Trial
Cytokinetics Announces its Phase 2 Clinical Trial
Positive Signs from REDWOOD-HCM
HCM Clinical Trials – the Latest News
2 Companies Testing Drugs for HCM
Scientists Get $10 Million Grant to Develop HCM Treatments
On October 22, patients, physicians, and other interested parties will have the opportunity to provide input on the value and cost of mavacamten – the first drug specifically designed to treat hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Last year, Bristol Myers Squibb paid $13.1 billion to acquire MyoKardia, the San Francisco biotech company that developed the drug and brought it through clinical trials.
At a virtual public meeting, The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review or ICER will listen to further testimony in order to evaluate mavacamten’s value and potential benefits. ICER is a non-profit organization that evaluates the cost effectiveness of drugs and medical procedures. Many insurance companies rely on ICER’s findings when deciding how much to pay for a certain treatment or test.
In an Effectiveness Report which was published today, ICER valued the benefit that mavacamten would bring to a patient at between $12,000 to $15,000 a year. By contrast, some analysts have suggested that mavacamten could carry a price tag as high as $75,000 per patient per year.
If you would like to share your thoughts at the online public meeting click here to sign up.
You can find a press release from ICER about their review of mavacamten here.
Editor’s note: You have probably noticed a distinct uptick in clinical trials of potential treatments for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. HCMBeat has been following this trend and has previously published a host of stories about such trials, including this story about the positive results from the REDWOOD-HCM Phase 2 clinical trial, as well as past stories discussing the biopharmaceutical company Cytokinetics, its drug aficamten (previously known as CK-274), and the REDWOOD-HCM trial.
Some of these earlier stories are as follows:
2 Companies Testing Drugs for HCM
HCM Clinical Trials – the Latest News
Positive Signs from REDWOOD-HCM
Cytokinetics Moves Forward with HCM Drug Trial
Recently, Cynthia Waldman of HCMBeat had the opportunity to speak over Zoom with Dr. Martin Maron, who recently served as the principal investigator of Cytokinetics’ REDWOOD trial. The conversation focused both on Cytokinetic’s drug aficamten (previously known as CK-274), and the new class of drugs known as “myosin inhibitors.” What follows is a transcript of their conversation (which has been edited for readability).
Yet another company is developing a new drug for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and this time, the drug is intended for non-obstructive HCM patients. The company is Imbria Pharmaceuticals, and this week they announced the randomizing of the first patient in their Phase 2 study of the drug IMB-101 in patients with non-obstructive HCM. The study, called IMPROVE-HCM, is a Phase 2 study that will look at the safety and tolerability of this drug in non-obstructed HCM patients. IMB-101 is designed to increase the efficiency of the heart’s use of energy which will be measured through cardiopulmonary exercise testing over a 12 week period.
You can read this press release and you can read more about the trial on ClinicalTrials.gov here.
More positive data about the Bristol Myers Squibb experimental drug mavacamten was revealed at last weekend’s American College of Cardiology meeting and simultaneously published in The Lancet.
The data showed improvement in how patients felt taking the drug, as reported and quantified by the patients themselves. The clinical trial participants filled out a questionnaire called the KCCQ, or Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire, 6 different times over the 38 weeks that the trial was ongoing.
Continue reading “More Positive Data on Mavacamten Presented at ACC Meeting”
Cytokinetics today announced that its Phase 2 double-blind study of its experimental drug CK-274 entitled “REDWOOD-HCM” (Randomized Evaluation of Dosing With CK-274 in Obstructive Outflow Disease in HCM (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) has begun enrollment. The trial will enroll patients with symptomatic, obstructive HCM.
CK-274 is a next-generation cardiac myosin inhibitor which the company hopes will prove to be beneficial for the treatment of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).
There are currently two companies in clinical trials for HCM: Cytokinetics and MyoKardia. You can read more about their efforts here and here.
Two San Francisco based companies are now conducting clinical trials for three drugs specifically targeting HCM.
The researchers hope that the added resources from this grant will help them find ways to correct pathological heart protein changes they believe to be at the root of HCM. The team then plans to partner with pharmaceutical companies to develop more personalized approaches to HCM treatment.
Dr. Spudich has long been involved in HCM research and has been a founder of two separate companies which are currently engaged in drug trials for potential HCM treatments: MyoKardia and Cytokinetics.
A story about Dr. Spudich and the inspiration for his work was featured in this recent post on HCMBeat.
This week in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, MyoKardia reported positive results from its open label phase 2 clinical trial of its drug mavacamten (formerly known as MYK-461) for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The study was conducted at 5 HCM centers and enrolled 21 subjects with obstructive HCM. All subjects saw some degree of improvement to their condition after taking mavacamten.
Continue reading “Positive Results for MyoKardia Drug Mavacamten”
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