News - Hypertension Week of Nov. 16, 2003/ Vol. 2 No. 46

Study: Remodulin Helps Arterial Pulmonary Hypertension Patients

The drug Remodulin® (treprostinil sodium) helps improve the function of patients with arterial pulmonary hypertension, according to a long-term study reported at the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando.

Lead researcher Dr. Jean-Luc Vachiery, a cardiologist at the Free University and Erasme Hospital in Brussels, Belgium, said patients taking the drug improved their ability to function by at least one New York Heart Association (NYHA) disease severity class.

The drug also helped the participants improve their exercise tolerance by more than 150 meters during the study period, Vachiery added.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension patients are grouped in a NYHA class based on whether they can perform any exercise and, if so, how much exercise they can perform.

The study involved 39 pulmonary arterial hypertension patients treated with Remodulin for up to 54 months. The average treatment time was 26 months.

"These data...provide compelling evidence that Remodulin therapy confers long-term symptomatic and survival benefit to patients with pulmonary hypertension," said Vachiery.

Injectable Remodulin is approved in the United States as a continuous infusion for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension in patients with NYHA Class II-IV symptoms.

Other sources: United Therapeutics Corporation