Camzyos, which prevents sudden cardiac death in young people

lands in Korea

Held an approval meeting for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy treatment

The only treatment that inhibits cardiac myosin, the root cause

Improvement of symptoms and exercise ability twice compared to placebo for 30 weeks

Korea BMS Pharmaceuticals (CEO Lee Hye-young) announced on the 20th that it held a domestic approval meeting for Camzyos, a treatment for 'obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (oHCM)', on the 19th and introduced its clinical value.

 

Obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a severe and rare heart disease in which thickened left ventricular muscle blocks blood flow to the whole body, causing shortness of breath, heart failure, fainting, and sudden cardiac death.

 

Camzyos, developed by Korea BMS Pharmaceuticals, selectively inhibits excessive cross-linking of cardiac myosin and actin, which is the cause of obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

 

On May 23, it received approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety as a treatment for improving motor function and symptoms in patients with symptomatic (mild and moderate) obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

 

In the first presentation, Professor Kim Hyung-gwan of Seoul National University Hospital's Department of Cardiovascular Medicine mentioned the overall overview of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in Korea, the treatment environment, and unmet needs in the current treatment strategy.

 

Professor Kim explained, "In the myocardium, two proteins, actin, and myosin, are connected to each other to contract the heart, and then separate again to relax the myocardium, acting as a pump, which is the function of the heart." "In patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, actin, and myosin are excessively connected to each other, causing excessive contraction of the myocardium, and this excessive connection makes it difficult for the myocardium to relax," he explained.

 

According to Professor Kim, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is one of the main causes of sudden cardiac death in young people, and its prevalence is gradually increasing in Korea along with the expansion of echocardiography.

 

This disease is divided into two types, obstructive and non-obstructive, and 15-20% of all patients are classified as obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

 

Treatment of obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is very limited, focusing on symptom relief and prevention of complications.

 

He added that some beta-blockers and calcium channel blockers, which are representatively used drugs, are difficult to expect long-term improvement in symptoms and the effect is not as good as expected, so there is a high unmet demand.

 

If drug treatment does not work, surgical myocardial resection or alcoholic septal resection is considered, but the explanation is that the risks of surgery are not small.

 

Camzyos is a new class of treatment that directly acts on the excessive binding of actin-myosin, which is the root cause of obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

 

Kamgios improves left ventricular outflow tract obstruction and normalizes excessive cardiac contractility by reducing the number of excessive cross-links of actin and myosin.

 

This restores left ventricular diastolic function, reduces ventricular filling pressure, and improves myocardial energy overconsumption.

 

The clinical trial that served as the basis for Camzyos approval is the EXPLORER-HCM study.

 

In this clinical trial, Camzyos improved the primary endpoints, patient symptoms (NYHA grade), and exercise capacity (maximum oxygen intake, pVO2) more than twice as compared to the placebo.

 

Twenty percent of the Camzyos group achieved both NYHA ratings and pVO2 improvements.

 

After exercise, the index of left ventricular outflow tract obstruction also decreased more than 4-fold.

 

Seven out of 10 patients treated with Camzyos improved their index to such an extent that they did not consider surgery, and maintained consistent effects for 30 weeks.

 

“Obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a rare and serious disease that can cause sudden cardiac death without warning in young people,” said Lee Hye-young, CEO of BMS Korea Pharmaceutical Korea.

 

“We are delighted to be able to present a new treatment paradigm for oHCM with the approval of Camzyos.”