text_1: Timely use of Novartis' Entresto could prevent or postpone over 28,000 US deaths per year among HFrEF patients, according to an expert analysis in JAMA Cardiology
text_2: This news release summarizes a study that estimated the benefits of sacubitril/valsartan (marketed as Entresto) vs enalapril (an ACE-inhibitor) in treating heart failure patients with lowered ejection fraction (the amount of blood pumped from the heart). In the study published in the medical journal JAMA Cardiology, researchers created a statistical model that estimated that about 28,000 patients per year with heart failure and a lowered ejection fraction could benefit from Entresto, a twice-daily pill approved in 2015. The model found that patients on Entresto lived a year longer, on average, than those treated with enalapril, and that the medication was “cost effective” when used with concurrent standard therapies. The release from the drugmaker, Novartis, describes their complex analysis and highlights their conclusion that the heart failure medication is cost effective. But the release does not include any discussion of the extremely high cost of the drug. An estimated 6 million people in the United States have heart failure, and about half of those with heart failure also have reduced ejection fraction, so any treatment for them matters for their individual health and for society’s costs of overall health treatment. The release states that the analysis reinforces a strong recommendation from several medical societies that the condition be treated with sacubitril/valsartan. This release about the statistical model of effectiveness for the drug Entresto claims that it could delay or prevent thousands of deaths per year, but does not include analysis that the total cost of treating the majority of those eligible could drastically tax the health system. A 2015 story in Kaiser Health News reports on a nonprofit analysis that raised questions about the cost-effectiveness of Entresto.