Bayer launches novel heart failure drug Verquvo for Rs 127 a pill

Bayer launched a novel heart failure drug  in India that it has co-developed with Merck at one-fifteenth of the global price at Rs 127 per pill. It’s a one pill a day therapy.

The drug named Verquvo (vericiguat) is the first novel treatment approved to reduce the risk of cardiovascular deaths and repeated hospitalisation among worsening heart failure patients, the company said. 

In India there are between 8-10 million people with heart failure, making it one of the world's largest populations with the malady. At 55-60 years, Indian patients are also a decade younger than their western counterparts. Despite the substantially younger age of patients, three out of every five Indian patients will die within five years of diagnosis. Heart failure remains the most common cardiac cause of hospitalisation in India with worsening events being one of the most important causes of death in heart failure patients.

Verquvo is a new class of drug (soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator) that works on a pathway that is not currently targeted by existing heart failure treatments. It was studied in a population with a higher risk of cardiovascular death or heart failure hospitalisation. Bayer claims that  Verquvo can help patients stay out of the hospital and improve the chances of survival in such patients. 

Manoj Saxena, Managing Director, Bayer Zydus Pharma, says, “Bayer is pleased to bring Verquvo to India in the week of World Heart Day, as a new treatment option for worsening heart failure patients to reduce frequent hospitalizations and the risk of death. Despite therapy, chronic heart failure patients can experience disease progression that disrupts their lives and leads to worsening heart failure events, where hospitalization or initiation of intravenous diuretics is needed.”

He adds that after an event of worsening heart failure, more than 50 percent of patients may require re-hospitalisation within 30 days. “The in-hospital mortality rate in India is also high and registry data suggest that it ranges between 10–30.8 percent as compared with 4-7 per cent in Western countries,” he says.

Chronic heart failure occurs when the heart is not able to pump blood as well as it should. Certain conditions such as the thickening of arteries (atherosclerosis), heart attack, infections, or rheumatic heart disease make the heart muscle weak or stiff, so that it cannot pump blood effectively.

Bayer received approval of vericiguat (Verquvo) in India based on the results of the pivotal Phase-III VICTORIA trial, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in March 2020. 

The drug is currently approved for use in 35 countries including the United States, European Union countries, the United Kingdom, Japan and Singapore.