The results demonstrated a dose related increase in cardiac output of up to 40% with only a 6% increase in heart rate.
In addition 7 of 8 patients in the trial exhibited improvement in cardiac ejection fraction. Patients exhibited mild to moderate reductions in both diastolic and systolic blood pressure without adverse effect. The drug was safe and well tolerated and there were no serious adverse events reported.
“With this preliminary ‘proof of concept’ data in patients with stable CHF (congestive heart failure), we will further optimize the dose and infusion duration in CHF patients in an extension of this study in the first half of 2006,” said Dr Wendell Wierenga, executive vice president of R&D for Neurocrine Biosciences.