Madrid has put blood pressure back on the biotech map. Over the weekend at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), AstraZeneca’s baxdrostat—a selective aldosterone-synthase inhibitor—delivered Phase 3 results in patients whose hypertension stays high despite multiple pills. In the same news cycle, Alnylam/Roche said zilebesiran, a twice-yearly RNA-interference shot targeting angiotensinogen, will move into an ~11,000-patient cardiovascular-outcomes trial. One is a daily tablet; the other is a “set-and-forget” injection. Between them sits a mass market that has resisted innovation and where poor adherence keeps outcomes stubbornly bad.
What the new data show
Baxdrostat (AstraZeneca). In the pivotal BaxHTN study (n=796),
