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New substance class to treat pulmonary hypertension

Phase III program launched for active substance riociguat

Dr. Gerrit Weimann, Dr. Maria-Luisa Rodriguez and Dr. Johannes-Peter Stasch (from left) hope to ensure that pulmonary hypertension, a serious yet frequently underrated illness, will someday be as easy to treat as high blood pressure.

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Dr. Gerrit Weimann, Dr. Maria-Luisa Rodriguez and Dr. Johannes-Peter Stasch (from left) hope to ensure that pulmonary hypertension, a serious yet frequently underrated illness, will someday be as easy to treat as high blood pressure.

Bayer Schering Pharma is making good progress with the development of its new pulmonary hypertension drug. Based on the positive findings from the clinical development phase II trial, the company has now begun a phase III program. Two phase III trials will investigate the active substance riociguat in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Riociguat is the first member of a new class of vasodilative substances and can be taken in tablet form.

“We are very encouraged by the positive phase II findings,” says Professor Hossein Ardeschir Ghofrani, head of the pulmonary hypertension unit in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University Hospital of Giessen and Marburg, Germany. “If these results are replicated in the phase III trials, this will be an exciting breakthrough for patients with pulmonary hypertension.” Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary arterial hypertension are life-threatening diseases. The currently available treatments are approved only for pulmonary arterial hypertension, which affects some 1.85 million people worldwide, and the median survival time for treated patients remains very limited.