ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc., based in Cambridge, Mass., today announced results of a newly published study demonstrating, for the first time, the cause of human congestive heart failure using a newly developed animal model of heart failure created using ARIAD’s cell-signaling regulation technology.
The development of clinically effective drugs to treat congestive heart failure has been impeded by the lack of predictive animal models – a limitation that may be overcome with this novel technique.
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The study showed that a low level of heart-muscle cell death, comparable or even lower than that observed in human heart failure, was sufficient to cause irreversible heart damage and expansion of the heart’s chambers. Furthermore, experimental drugs that specifically blocked heart-muscle cell death largely prevented these hallmarks of congestive heart failure, potentially offering new therapeutic options for the treatment of this life-threatening disease.
“This study provides further evidence of the broad applicability of ARIAD’s cell-signaling regulation technology to create previously unattainable animal models of human disease – in this case, congestive heart failure,” said Harvey J. Berger, M.D., chairman and chief executive officer of ARIAD. “Having highly predictive in vivo models to test the safety and efficacy of potential new therapies is essential for the drug discovery process, especially where long-term clinical trials are required.”
