New injection could ‘revolutionize’ treatment of high blood pressure

Drug trials are currently underway in the UK in what some experts have said is a huge breakthrough in treating high blood pressure. Just one injection every six months could lower high blood pressure, trial results suggest.

The new drug, zilebesiran, developed by US-based company Alnylam, is given as an injection rather than in traditional pill form.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, rarely has noticeable symptoms. But if untreated, it increases your risk of serious problems such as heart attacks and strokes.

Persistent high blood pressure can increase your risk of a number of serious and potentially life-threatening conditions, such as:

heart disease
heart attacks
strokes
heart failure
peripheral arterial disease
aortic aneurysms
kidney disease
vascular dementia

The Daily Mail reported that for the drug trials, 107 patients with hypertension were recruited to take part – 80 received a single injection of zilebesiran under the skin, while 32 received a placebo containing no active ingredients.

Five patients who initially received the placebo were later moved to zilebesiran.

Analysis revealed patients who received zilebesiran experienced a substantial reduction in systolic blood pressure – the force with which the heart pushes blood out and round the body – which lasted up to six months.

On average, systolic blood pressure lowered by over 10mmHg at a 200mg dose or more of the drug, and more than 20mmHg at the highest dose of 800mg.

A drop of this size can take someone with high blood pressure to within a much safer range.

Blood pressure naturally goes up and down throughout the course of the day, making it difficult to treat.

But the study found that the drop in blood pressure seen in patients who were treated with zilebesiran was consistent over 24 hours.