31 August 2025
The European Society of Cardiology Congress 2025 is currently in session in conjunction with the World Congress of Cardiology in Madrid, Spain.
A breakthrough to deal with stubbornly high blood pressure has been announced at the Congress. A new medication called Baxdrostat has demonstrated in trials to significantly lower blood pressure in people whose levels previously remained high despite taking existing medications such as Losartan Actavis.
This Rejigit editor knows from personal experience what a pain in the butt it is dealing with excessive blood pressure.
Clinical trials of Baxdrostat have produced encouraging results for people whose hypertension has proved difficult to control and demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful reduction of systolic blood pressure.
A BaxHTN study, which encompassed 796 patients from 214 worldwide medical clinics confirmed that after twelve weeks, patients taking Baxdrostat experienced a reduction in blood pressure of circa 9 -10 mmHg.
Principal investigator Prof Bryan Williams, chair of medicine at UCL, observed “I’ve never previously seen blood pressure reductions of this magnitude via a drug and this level of reduction is linked to a substantially lower the risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure and kidney disease.”
Blood pressure can be influenced by a hormone called Aldosterone which helps kidneys regulate salt and water balance. Some people produce excessive Aldosterone which causes the body to retain salt and water and which can push blood pressure up and make it difficult to control. Addressing Aldosterone dysregulation has been the target of much research over many years, but until now it has been unsuccessful. Baxdrostat is an oral medication and operates by blocking Aldosterone production, thereby directly addressing a driver of high blood pressure.
Baxdrostat is a selective aldosterone synthase inhibitor, a drug class not yet approved by the FDA and is expected to be approved by 2026. Baxdrostat had been developed by AstraZeneca Plc
