Made by Bayer AG and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc, Nexavar is  approved in the United States for kidney and liver cancer. Eight out of the first nine patients who took the drug saw  improvements in their ability to exercise, and six out of nine  had significant improvement in their right ventricular ejection  fraction, which measures the heart’s ability to pump blood to  the lungs. Four patients had decreased pressure in their pulmonary  artery, which supplies blood to the lungs. “What patients are telling us is they are able to do more  in their daily lives,” said Dr. Mardi Gomberg-Maitland of the  University of Chicago, who presented her findings at a meeting  of the American Thoracic Society in Toronto. The original  research on the drug was done at the University. She said the surprising thing is that the drug worked so  quickly. Patients saw benefits in only four months. The study is the first human trial to examine the  sorafenib, or Nexavar, in pulmonary hypertension, a disease in  which blood vessels feeding the lungs narrow, forcing the heart  to work harder. Like cancer, pulmonary hypertension is a disease marked by  abnormal cell growth, which narrows the arteries feeding the  lungs, reducing blood flow and taxing the heart. Sorafenib  appears to interfere with this process. The trial enrolled patients with stable disease who  continued to take their primary medications, which included a  continuous infusion of a drug called prostacyclin and Pfizer  Inc’s Viagra or sildenafil. Both relax blood vessels that feed  the lungs. Gomberg-Maitland said this therapy typically slows  progression of the disease, but does not reverse it. They added sorafenib for 16 weeks, but at a lower dose than  cancer patients use. Most patients in the trial increased their exercise  capacity, as measured by time on a treadmill or a six-minute  walk test. They saw an average 8 percent improvement in their  right ventricular ejection fraction, a measure of the heart’s  pumping power. Side effects included mild hair loss and skin reactions. The study was designed to last only 16 weeks, but all of  the patients continue to take the drug, some now for more than  a year. “What is exciting about this is all of the patients feel  better and nobody wants to come off the medication,”  Gomberg-Maitland said in a telephone interview. The study was intended to test the safety and dosing of the  drug. It was funded by The Doris Duke Foundation and the  University of Chicago. The researchers now plan to study the drug in 40 to 60  patients at different research centers.
Nexavar helped in pulmonary hypertension study.