Pulmonary arterial hypertension treatment space boosted by combination therapies

The increased use and higher cost of combination therapy for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), as recommended by consensus guidelines unveiled at this year’s European Society of Cardiology Congress.

According to Lakshmi Dharmarajan, research and consulting firm GlobalData’s senior analyst covering cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, says these changes mean that combination treatments could become the standard of care for PAH patients sooner than expected, as the adoption of initial combinations could be rapid in future clinical practice.

Dr Dharmarajan explains: “After comparisons to the heart failure market, where combination treatment is already the standard, PAH therapeutics have started to follow a similar trend, with an increasing number of trials and meta-analyses demonstrating the clinical benefit of combination therapy over monotherapy. Estimates from the REVEAL study indicated that around 46% of PAH patients in the USA were taking two medications for the condition, while around 9% were taking three drugs for disease management.”