Can Merck and Bayer's newly approved Verquvo stand out in an ever-more-competitive heart failure field?

Bayer and partner Merck & Co. have carried a new heart failure drug across the FDA finish line, hoping to carve blockbuster share out of an ever-more-competitive field. As industry watchers see it, the two will have a hard time getting there in the face of stepped-up competition from Novartis and AstraZeneca.

The FDA Tuesday approved Verquvo, or vericiguat, to treat patients with chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). The go-ahead is limited to a group of high-risk patients who’ve recently been hospitalized or received diuretics as outpatients for acute decompensated heart failure.