About one-third of adults have high blood pressure. Two-thirds of these have uncontrolled high blood pressure. A key driver of poor blood pressure control is people not taking their tablets as prescribed.
Tablets have been used to treat high blood pressure for decades. But about one in two people prescribed them stop taking them in the first year. Others don’t take their tablets reliably.
Tablets for high blood pressure, or hypertension , are short-acting. So they need to be taken at least once a day. But in recent clinical trials, injectable treatments have reduced blood pressure for up to six months .
If approved, these injectables would be the first new drug class for high blood pressure in decades . By potentially making it easier for people to stick with their treatment, these injectables could help achieve a long-lasting reduction in blood pressure. Lowering blood pressure by even just 5mmHg (millimetres of mercury, a measurement used to record blood pressure) can dramatically lower the chance of developing heart disease or stroke.
These injectables are not “vaccines” in the conventional sense. Instead, they are similar to already-approved injectables, such as the diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Trulicity. But unlike these medicines which are self-administered, the ones for high blood pressure would be delivered by a doctor or nurse under the skin.
Two drug candidates in recent clinical trials target a liver protein called angiotensinogen. This is a cru.