FDA approves new drug that may help stop and even reverse a rare, fatal condition that doctors call a ‘ticking time bomb'

When doctors told a woman named Katrina that she had a rare and serious condition called pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), they warned her not to Google it. However, Katrina, a young woman bound for graduate school, couldn’t resist looking it up. She discovered that PAH affects about 500 to 1,000 Americans each year, primarily women aged 30 to 60. The doctors offered Katrina an experimental drug called sotatercept, which she signed up to study. The US Food and Drug Administration recently approved the drug, which is now known as Winrevair. It is designed to target proteins called activins that cause the thickening of blood vessels in PAH patients. The approval was granted based on patients’ ability to walk farther in six minutes after taking the drug.