Amgen And Cytokinetics Announce Presentation Of Data From COSMIC-HF Trial

(RTTNews) - Amgen (AMGN) and Cytokinetics Inc. (CYTK) announced the presentation of data from the expansion phase of COSMIC-HF (Chronic Oral Study of Myosin Activation to Increase Contractility in Heart Failure), a Phase 2 trial evaluating omecamtiv mecarbil in patients with chronic heart failure, in a Late-Breaking Clinical Trial session at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2015 in Orlando, Fla.

The trial met its primary pharmacokinetic objective and demonstrated statistically significant improvements in all pre-specified secondary measures of cardiac function in the treatment group employing pharmacokinetic-based dose titration.

Omecamtiv mecarbil, a novel investigational cardiac myosin activator, enhances cardiac function by increasing cardiac contractility and is being developed for the potential treatment of heart failure.

The expansion phase of COSMIC-HF was designed to evaluate the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, safety and tolerability of oral omecamtiv mecarbil in 448 patients with chronic heart failure and left ventricular systolic dysfunction. Patients were randomized 1:1:1 to receive either placebo or treatment with omecamtiv mecarbil 25 mg twice daily or a dose titration group where 25 mg twice daily dosing could be increased to 50 mg twice daily depending on plasma concentrations of omecamtiv mecarbil after two weeks of treatment with the 25 mg dose. Data from the expansion phase showed that dose titration controlled patient exposure to omecamtiv mecarbil. Approximately 60 percent of patients in the dose titration group escalated dosing to 50 mg twice daily.

Following 20 weeks of treatment, statistically significant improvements were observed in pre-specified secondary endpoint measures of cardiac function in the dose titration group, compared to placebo. Systolic ejection time increased by 25.0 msec (p<0.001), stroke volume increased by 3.63 mL (p=0.022) and heart rate decreased by 2.97 beats per min (p=0.007). Left ventricular end-systolic and end-diastolic dimensions decreased by 1.79 mm (p=0.003) and 1.29 mm (p=0.013), respectively, and were associated with statistically significant reductions in left ventricular end-systolic and end-diastolic volumes. N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) decreased by 970 pg/mL (p=0.007).

Additionally, in the 25 mg twice daily group, there were statistically significant increases in systolic ejection time and stroke volume and a decrease in NT-proBNP. All changes are from baseline compared to placebo. The pharmacodynamic effects of omecamtiv mecarbil were generally dose dependent and larger in patients that received oral dosing with 50 mg twice daily.