One heart drug, two new tricks: a stiffer heart loosens, and clots form less easily

Sotagliflozin is a diabetes and heart-failure medicine that blocks two sugar-handling proteins at once, instead of the usual one. Two independent studies published today suggest that double action does extra work. In the first, in a mouse model of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy — a disease where the heart muscle grows too thick and stiff — the drug reversed the thickening, reduced scarring inside the heart and restored its ability to relax and fill properly. In the second, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, it calmed platelets — the tiny blood cells that form clots — and reduced clot formation in human blood tested outside the body, without upsetting normal clotting. Both studies are early, in animals and lab-tested blood rather than patients, but they help explain why earlier patient trials saw fewer heart attacks and strokes.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation