UK NICE draft guidance backs Servier's Procoralan for chronic heart failure

The UK’s drugs watchdog the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), in draft guidance issued today (August 7), has recommended National Health Service use of independent French drugmaker Laboratoire Servier’s Procoralan (ivabradine).

The drug is backed as an option for the treatment of people with chronic heart failure (NYHA class II to IV with systolic dysfunction, in people in sinus rhythm and whose heart rate is 75 beats per minute or more) in combination with standard therapy, including beta-blocker therapy, or when beta-blocker therapy is contraindicated or not tolerated.

The draft guidance also recommends that therapies that are used routinely for managing heart failure (ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers and aldosterone antagonists) should be optimized before treatment with ivabradine is initiated by a heart failure specialist with access to a multi-disciplinary heart failure team, and after a stabilisation period on these therapies of 4 weeks.