Empagliflozin Secures Reimbursement for Heart Failure Treatment
Starting May 1st, health insurance companies will cover Jardiance® (empagliflozin) for patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. Cardiologists, pediatric cardiologists, angiologists, and internists will be able to prescribe it with reimbursement. This decision was made by the State Institute for Drug Control (SÚKL) in mid-April. Hundreds of thousands of Czechs suffering from this serious condition will now have access to another effective medication. The drug is manufactured by Boehringer Ingelheim.
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“The reimbursement approval is a groundbreaking event as it increases access to modern treatment for patients. It also ensures the implementation of the European Society of Cardiology's recommendation that all patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction should have access to a four-drug combination, which includes gliflozin. This not only extends the patients' lives but also improves their quality of life and reduces the risk of death and hospitalization,” explains the chairman of the Czech Association for Heart Failure of the Czech Cardiology Society, Prof. MUDr. Filip Málek, Ph.D., MBA.
The European Commission decided to register Jardiance® on June 17, 2021, based on the results of the EMPEROR-Reduced study. In this study, empagliflozin demonstrated a 25% reduction in the combined relative risk of cardiovascular death or hospitalization due to heart failure, regardless of whether the patient had type 2 diabetes or not. The study results also showed that empagliflozin reduced the relative risk of first and recurrent hospitalization due to heart failure by 30%.
The health insurance reimbursement applies to Jardiance® 10 mg in packs of 28 tablets for patients with chronic heart failure with ejection fraction ≤ 40% and eGFR > 20 ml/min/1.73 m2, who continue to exhibit NYHA II-III class symptoms despite optimal treatment. Optimal treatment includes therapy with at least one angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEi) or angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB, sartan) along with a beta-blocker (BB) and a mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA). Patients take it at the target dose as recommended or at the maximum tolerated dose.
Other variants of Jardiance® (30× 10 mg and 90× 10 mg), available in the Czech market, are reimbursed by insurance companies only for patients with type 2 diabetes and can only be prescribed with reimbursement by diabetologists, endocrinologists, and internists.
Heart failure affects more than 60 million people worldwide and is the most common cause of hospitalization in Europe. According to data from the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic (ÚZIS), its prevalence is increasing by an average of 9% annually, and experts expect that the number of patients will continue to rise with the increasing average age of the population. Czech cardiologists estimate that the number of people with heart failure could increase by up to 50% by 2030, reaching approximately 450,000.
About Boehringer Ingelheim
Boehringer Ingelheim develops breakthrough therapies that improve the lives of current and future generations. As one of the world's leading research-driven biopharmaceutical companies, it creates value through innovation in areas where there have been no suitable treatment options. Boehringer Ingelheim has been a family-owned company with a long-term perspective since its founding in 1885. More than a thousand employees operate in 130 markets worldwide across three business sectors: human pharmaceuticals, animal health, and biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing.
More information: www.boehringer-ingelheim.cz
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