Heart failure drug may benefit 20,000 patients

A novel treatment for heart failure — one of nine drugs caught up in a dispute over funding earlier this year — is available from today to Irish patients under the State’s reimbursement scheme.

Entresto, for the treatment of symptomatic chronic heart failure in adult patients with a reduced ejection fraction — when the muscle of the left ventricle is not pumping blood as well as normal — could potentially benefit up to 20,000 people.

That’s according to a budgetary impact analysis by the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics (NCPE) which estimated that the net drug budget impact over five years could exceed €50m.