Research team led by Dr. Jiri Krupicka of Na Homolce Hospital in Prague, the Czech Republic conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized study to the effect of the long-term administration of candesartan - marketed by AstraZeneca and Takeda as Atacand and BioPress respectively - on patients with Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

Generally people with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy display mild symptoms or are completely asymptomatic, up to 1 percent of affected people succumb to sudden cardiac death, often with no previous signs of illness.

Researchers said that candesartan reduced the symptoms of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, including decreasing the thickening of the left ventricle. The researchers added that they did not observe any adverse effects of candesartan use over the course of their study.