Observed in February, Heart Month 2026 is a time to raise awareness about cardiovascular health and highlight ways people can protect their hearts.
Heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, including in the US, accounting for a substantial share of fatalities across age, sex and racial groups.
Understanding the scale of the challenge and quest for solutions, including prevention, can empower more people to take actionable steps toward healthier, longer lives.
Heart Disease: A Persistent Public Health Challenge
Cardiovascular disease (CVD), which includes heart disease and stroke, continues to be a major health burden globally.
According to the CDC, in 2023, 919,032 people died from cardiovascular disease in the US, equivalent to roughly one in every three deaths. Someone in the US dies of CVD every 34 seconds.
Heart disease alone accounts for about 22% of all deaths each year. Heart attacks remain frequent: about 805,000 occur annually in the US, of which 605,000 are first-time events.
These figures underscore that cardiovascular conditions aren’t rare; they’re among the most common health threats facing individuals and families nationwide.
Heart Health Matters at Every Age
The major challenge with heart disease is that risk factors often accumulate silently over years, long before symptoms appear. Common contributors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, obesity, inactivity and poor diet.
Nearly half of US adults have high blood pressure, a leading driver of heart disease and stroke. About one in 20 US adults aged 20 and above has coronary artery disease, the most common form of heart disease.
Many of these risks are modifiable through lifestyle and care, offering opportunities for prevention.
Heart issues can strike at any age. According to the American Heart Association, 23,000 children experience cardiac arrest outside of hospital settings every year.
As part of Heart Month 2026, the association is encouraging people to learn CPR so that they may be able to provide life-saving help to someone in need as part of its Nation of Lifesavers initiative.
Changes as simple as regular physical activity, wholesome nutrition, stress management and routine screening can significantly lower the risk of heart disease and promote heart health over time.
Heart Health in Women: Unique Risks and Realities
For women in the US, heart disease is the leading cause of death across all ages.
More than 60 million women in the US are living with some form of heart disease.
In 2023, heart disease was responsible for over 300,000 female deaths, about one in every five female deaths. Yet only about half of US women recognize heart disease as their number one killer.
Women not only face high prevalence, but research also shows that many traditional risk factors may impact women differently or more severely:
High blood pressure and obesity significantly elevate heart disease risk in women. Pregnancy-related conditions like preeclampsia and gestational diabetes are linked to long-term cardiovascular risk. Women with diabetes are also more likely than men with diabetes to develop heart disease.
Heart disease symptoms in women are often less typical, contributing to delayed diagnoses and treatment.
Emerging Therapies Advancing Cardiovascular Care
New generations of cardiovascular therapies involve a focus on precision medicine, disease modification and earlier intervention, with approaches including lipid management, myocardial contractility, inflammation, arrhythmia control and resistant hypertension.
In lipid management, therapeutic innovation is increasingly focused on genetic and residual risk factors that remain inadequately addressed by statins alone. PCSK9 inhibitors have demonstrated sustained LDL-cholesterol lowering and reductions in major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), and their role continues to expand as longer-term outcome data mature.
Amgen’s Repatha (evolocumab) has been shown to significantly reduce major cardiovascular events, and expanded indications now include adults with high LDL cholesterol, even without prior heart disease. Results from large trials have shown a 36% reduction in the risk of first heart attack and a lower overall cardiovascular risk.
Amgen recently shared data from its large-scale VESALIUS-CV trial (4.5 years, 12,000 patients) that showed Repatha reduced MACE by 25% in high-risk patients without prior cardiovascular history.
Amgen’s small interfering RNA therapy olpasiran is currently in Phase III trials to evaluate whether lowering Lp(a) reduces MACE in people with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. So far, the therapy has been shown to lower Lp(a) by over 95% in patients with high cardiovascular risk. It works by degrading apolipoprotein(a) mRNA in the liver, with effects lasting for months. As of early 2025, trials are ongoing to confirm whether this potent reduction in apolipoprotein(a) mRNA translates into a reduction in cardiovascular events.
Cardiol Therapeutics’ clinical programs CardiolRx and next-generation anti-inflammatory/anti-fibrotic therapy CRD-38 are in advanced trials for conditions such as recurrent pericarditis, myocarditis and heart failure. Late-stage trial results have shown reductions in left ventricular mass and improvements in cardiac structure. The company recently completed an $11 million private placement financing to extend its operational runway into mid-2027 and fully fund late-stage development of its cardiovascular pipeline featuring its two main assets.
Meanwhile, early-stage trials are exploring therapies derived from cardiomyocyte cells, such as Heartseed’s HS-001, for advanced heart failure. Last year, the Japan-based company announced that it had completed enrolment for a Phase I/II trial evaluating the investigational stem cell-derived treatment.
New Treatments for Specific Heart Conditions
Cardiac myosin inhibitors have been a major advancement in the treatment of obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (oHCM). They directly modulate sarcomere contractility, with demonstrated improvements in exercise capacity, left ventricular outflow tract gradients and patient-reported outcomes in late-stage trials, offering a disease-specific oral treatment option for a population with historically limited pharmacologic choices.
Cytokinetics recently won a landmark approval for its oral cardiac myosin inhibitor Myqorzo (aficamten) for symptomatic oHCM, offering a targeted treatment for this genetic heart muscle condition.
Myqorzo will be going up against Bristol Myers Squibb’s (BMS) cardiac myosin inhibitor Camzyos (mavacamten), which received FDA approval in 2022, currently dominates the space and is expected to reach billion-dollar blockbuster status soon.
In December 2025, the FDA approved Milestone Pharmaceuticals’ Cardamyst (etripamil), a nasal spray for paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (a rapid heart rhythm disorder), offering a more convenient, non-invasive option for acute management.
SGLT2 inhibitors, including AstraZeneca’s Farxiga (dapagliflozin) and Boehringer Ingelheim/Eli Lilly’s Jardiance (empagliflozin), have become cornerstone therapies in heart failure management and major blockbusters in the space. They’ve demonstrated consistent reductions in heart failure hospitalizations and cardiovascular death across a broad range of patients, including those with reduced and preserved ejection fraction, regardless of diabetes status.
Originally developed to lower blood glucose by promoting renal glucose excretion, the agents were found to exert pleiotropic cardiovascular benefits, such as improving cardiac energetics, reducing preload and afterload through osmotic diuresis and natriuresis, lowering inflammation and fibrosis as well as enhancing renal protection. Large outcome trials showed that SGLT2 inhibitors deliver early and durable clinical benefits when added to standard heart failure therapy.
SGLT2 inhibitors are now a part of standard therapy for heart failure anpart of the “fantastic four” guideline-directed medical therapies (GDMT) for reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) and are recommended for HFpEF, as they significantly reduce hospitalizations and cardiovascular death.
Farxiga was the first SGLT2 inhibitor approved by the FDA in May 2020 to treat heart failure, specifically for reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).
Jardiance generated approximately €8.36 billion (~$9.04 billion) in annual sales in 2024 with Farxiga close behind at $7.7 billion.
Join or login to leave a comment
JOIN LOGIN