Alice Melão, MSc,  —

Uptravi (selexipag) is now available with public funding for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) patients in Canada living in nine of the country’s 1o provinces, patient groups announced. The governments of British Columbia and Nova Scotia recently added Uptravi to their publicly funded medicines — likely making Actelion’s PAH…

PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals started dosing its investigational compound PB1046 in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in a Phase 2b clinical trial. The first patient to receive the therapy was dosed by Murali Chakinala, MD, professor of medicine at the Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM), and director of…

INOpulse is advancing in a number of clinical trials as a potential treatment of pulmonary hypertension (PH) associated with several lung diseases, Bellerophon Therapeutics reported in a recent announcement. The company is currently developing INOpulse to treat PH associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), interstitial lung…

Treatment with inhaled Ventavis (iloprost) has limited effectiveness in improving the survival rate of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), despite the clinical improvements it induces, real-world data suggests. These findings resulted from an analysis of data collected in the observational Spanish REHAP registry. They were recently reported in…

Patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) at risk of having pulmonary hypertension (PH) also have similar risk factors for a poorer outcome as patients with SSc-PH and SSc-pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a study shows. Being male, having accumulation of fluids around the heart, low oxygen desaturation during exercise, and reduced…

Long-term use of ralinepag, an investigational therapy being developed by Arena Pharmaceuticals, can promote positive changes in the outcome of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), interim data from a Phase 2 extension trial shows. After taking oral ralinepag for a median of up to 1.8 years, patients continued…

Drinking nitrate-rich beetroot juice can improve the production of nitric oxide in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a small clinical trial shows. Data from the trial was reported in the study, “Effects of oral supplementation with nitrate-rich beetroot juice in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension…

Long-term oxygen therapy had a damaging effect on rats with induced idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), leading to poorer outcomes and reduced survival rates. That finding was reported in the study “Oxygen therapy may worsen the survival rate in rats with monocrotaline-induced pulmonary arterial hypertension,” and published in…

A protein called RAGE was found to be an important contributor to the remodeling of blood vessels in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). This is an important finding because it could lead researchers to develop new strategies that target RAGE protein as a potential treatment for the life-threatening disease. The RAGE protein,…

Pregnancy among women with heart diseases is generally safe, with just a few deaths being reported in the ROPAC registry during a 10-year period. However, pregnancy was found to be linked to an increased mortality risk among women with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). The most recent results of this…

Actelion Pharmaceuticals has filed a request with the European Medicines Agency for the expanded approval of Opsumit (macitentan) as a treatment for adults with moderate to severe inoperable chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH), the company announced. If the EMA approves the submitted type II variation to…

Evaluation of Midkine (MDK) and Follistatin-like 3 (FSTL3) protein levels in the blood can help identify patients with systemic sclerosis-associated pulmonary arterial hypertension (SSc-PAH), researchers suggest. The study, “Serum biomarker for diagnostic evaluation of pulmonary arterial hypertension in systemic sclerosis” was published in the journal…