Not faster, but longer - new drug omecamtiv mecarbil changes beat in treating heart failure

A new drug which offers a radically different approach to treating certain types of heart failure has been shown to improve cardiac function in heart failure patients in its first clinical trials, report UK researchers.

Current treatments for heart failure are aimed at a wide range of targets, but omecamtiv mercabil is the first of a new class of drugs - called cardiac myosin activators - which target the motor proteins that cause muscle contraction. Cardiac myosin activators prolong the interaction between the motor proteins myosin and actin to prolong the contraction of the left ventricle, the heart chamber which pumps oxygenated blood out to the rest of the body. Rather than make the heart beat more often, omecamtiv mercabil makes the heart muscles contract for longer, which increases the volume of blood the heart pumps with each stroke.

Omecamtiv mecarbil being developed by Cytokinetics and Amgen