Researchers from the University of the Pacific School of Pharmacy have helped discover a possible breakthrough drug.
The drug could help prevent a rare form of heart failure.
Familial amyloid cardiomyopathy is an inherited condition that causes heart failure.
It affects about 4% of African Americans and about 20% of people over 80-years-old.
Researchers from the UOP School of Pharmacy, Stanford Medical School, and Scripps Research have discovered a drug called AG-10 which can stabilize proteins that sometimes attack the heart causing it to fail.
UOP Researcher Dr. Mamoun Alhamadsheh says the only treatment available now is a heart and liver transplant.
"There are so many issues with heart transplants as I mentioned, they cost about a million dollars for the heart, and about a half million dollars for the liver transplant, you need to find the match," says Alhamadsheh.
Dr. Alhamadsheh says AG-10 offers hope for about 50,000 patients who suffer from the condition.
"So from 3-4 years, if everything went fine, this could be a drug on the market,” says Alhamadsheh.
The drug also offers a possible treatment for Alzheimer's disease.
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