A Short Review of New Drugs for Heart Failure: Omecamtiv Mecarbil and Vericiguat

Heart failure is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Although developments of therapeutic agents have shown benefit and have improved the patients’ condition, there is only a slight decreased of mortality rate throughout the years. This condition becomes a reason to develop efficient drugs which can further improve the condition and reducing the mortality significantly. New therapeutic agents have been proposed and studied. Among them is cardiac myosin activator, such as omecamtiv mecarbil. This drug will increase the binding of myosin head to the actin and therefore form a stronger contraction. Omecamtiv mecarbil is beneficial due to its mechanism which not related to higher oxygen consumption and less adverse events. Another promising drug is vericiguat, a soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) stimulator. This drug enhances the binding of nitric oxide to sGC and therefore increasing cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) production. cGMP important in regulating physiological processed in the cardiovascular system. In this review, we will discuss about the current evidence about these novel agents. Keywords: heart failure, novel agent, omecamtiv mecarbil, vericiguat, management