A new study from King’s College London has given hope to millions of people at risk of sudden death from heart attacks.
Scientists have developed a new drug called OCT2013 that may stop fatal heart rhythm problems without causing the harmful side effects seen with older treatments.
Heart attacks are one of the leading causes of death around the world. In the UK alone, about 100,000 people die every year from heart attacks, and many of them die before an ambulance can reach them. One of the main reasons is a dangerous condition called ischemia.
This happens when a blood clot blocks one of the arteries that supply the heart, cutting off oxygen. Without enough oxygen, part of the heart muscle starts to die. This can lead to a life-threatening irregular heartbeat known as ventricular fibrillation, or VF. When VF occurs, the heart quivers instead of pumping blood, and it can cause sudden death within minutes.
Doctors have tried many drugs to stop VF, but most have failed in clinical trials because of serious side effects. One such drug is lidocaine, which can help control dangerous heart rhythms but can also interfere with normal heart and brain function.
Because of these risks, doctors only give lidocaine through an IV in hospitals, meaning it cannot help people who collapse at home or on the street.
The new drug OCT2013 was designed to solve this problem. It has a similar structure to lidocaine but behaves in a much smarter way. In laboratory tests using rats that had heart attacks, the researchers found that OCT2013 only becomes active in parts of the heart that are low in oxygen — the same areas that are damaged during a heart attack.
Once it reaches these oxygen-starved cells, OCT2013 turns into active lidocaine and stabilizes the heart’s electrical signals, preventing the deadly rhythm disturbances that cause sudden death.
This selective activation is what makes OCT2013 so special. It stays inactive in healthy tissue and does not affect the brain or other parts of the body. That means it could offer the benefits of lidocaine without the risks. In animal studies, the drug successfully reduced the chance of sudden death after a heart attack while avoiding the usual side effects.
If further testing in humans confirms these results, OCT2013 could change the way doctors treat heart attacks. For the first time, people at risk of sudden cardiac death might have access to a safe and effective drug that can be used outside hospitals — possibly as an emergency injection or even a tablet.
The study, led by Dr. Mike Curtis and his team and published in the British Journal of Pharmacology, represents a major step forward in heart health research.
It not only offers new hope for preventing sudden cardiac death but also shows how modern science is finding safer, smarter ways to treat diseases. The idea of drugs that “switch on” only when needed could be used in many areas of medicine in the future.
By focusing on safety and timing, this breakthrough may one day save countless lives and change the way we respond to heart attacks forever.
If you care about health, please read studies about the benefits of low-dose lithium supplements, and what we know about egg intake and heart disease.
For more health information, please see recent studies about potatoes and high blood pressure, and results showing 6 best breads for people with heart disease.
Copyright © 2025 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
